In-house Audio-visual Production

One of AAA' s main goals is to build up raw and primary source material so as to encourage new research in the field. This is achieved through in-depth video and audio interviews with key individuals, and by travelling to document key events and exhibitions The details of these collections can be viewed via our online catalogue, and users are welcome to view the tapes in our physical library in Hong Kong.

Zhongguo Meishubao (Fine Arts in China)

Zhongguo Meishubao is a weekly Chinese art newspaper published in Beijing from 1985 to 1989, featuring exhibitions, events and discussions on art throughout the country, at a time when the New Wave Art Movement was gaining immense attention.

This set of Zhongguo Meishubao (229 issues in 9 bound volumes) was generously donated by the artist Ding Fang in 2004.

Chinese-art.com Archive

Chinese-art.com was launched in 1997 as a non-profit web magazine "designed to provide collectors, historians, curators, dealers and critics outside China with an in-depth look at some of the art making history in China today" . The website featured information on exhibitions, artists and the art market in China, until it ceased running in 2003.

In 2007, Robert Bernell, the publisher and editor of the website, deposited his collection of material to the archive. This valuable collection includes more than 600 profiles of Asian art professionals, art organizations and events held in China and abroad, as well as audio interviews conducted by the magazine.

Lu Peng Collection

Chengdu-based art historian Lu Peng has been donating materials to the archive since its inception. The Lu Peng Collection at the AAA includes various original material:

Material from the 1980s, covering correspondence with and project proposals from artists, manuscripts, clippings, slides, photographs, and exhibition publicity ephemerals;

The visual images used in Lu' s A History of China Modern Art: 1979-1989, a seminal monograph on the 1980s art scene in China, published in 1992;

Complete documentation of the organization of The First 1990s Biennial Art Fair Guangzhou.

Consultation of the material is subject to permission of the donor.

1980s Periodicals in China

Through the research project of 1980s contemporary art in China, the Archive aims to make the collection of the 1980s periodicals as complete as possible. Newly acquired crucial periodicals of the period in bulk include: Jiangsu Huakan (Jiangsu Art Monthly), New Observation, Yishu Shijie (Art World), Meishu Sichao (The Trend of art Thought), Meishu Yicong (Art in Translation), etc.

Zhang Xiaogang Archive

In 2007, the archive worked with Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang, best known for his Family Series paintings, to digitize his personal archive. The digital collection is a thorough compilation of Zhang's works, drawings and sketches, personal correspondence, photographs, manuscripts, news clippings, bibliographies, and exhibition publicity ephemerals. The collection covers periods from the late 1970s to 2007.

An inventory of the collection conceived and collated by AAA will be available online soon.

Consultation of the materials is subject to permission of the donor.

Yao Jui-chung Collection

Taiwanese artist Yao Jui-chung plays a dual role as artist and critic, producing photo-works, theatre works and installation art, as well being an art critic and writer. As an artist, Yao constantly receives exhibition material such as invitation cards, postcards, leaflets, and brochures, and over the years has kept these mailings. His original intention was to keep this huge variety of printed material for his own reference. Only gradually, did he see the importance of preserving these items as evidence of the development of art in Taiwan.

This digital collection covers material from early 1990s to 2004, and includes nearly 5000 scanned images of invitation cards, leaflets, and newspaper and periodical articles written on and by Yao. The collection was digitized with the help of AAA's Taiwan researcher and arrived in the archive in 2005.

Mao Xuhui Collection

Kunming-based painter Mao Xuhui is regarded as the 'spiritual leader' of the avant-garde art community in southwest China. Mao has built up a comprehensive personal archive of his artistic career and activities that spans over two decades.

The Asia Art Archive has been digitising Mao’s archive since 2004. The digital collection includes Mao’s correspondences with fellow artists, curators, art critics, sketchbooks, notebooks, manuscripts and exhibition ephemerals and documentation.

Consultation of the materials is subject to the permission of the artist.

Red Gate Gallery Archive

Founded in 1991 by Brian Wallace, Red Gate Gallery based in Beijing was one of the first galleries active in organizing exhibitions for young Chinese artists. This collection of material dates back to 1988 and includes approximately 800 items including invitations, leaflets, Red Gate exhibition listings in periodicals, correspondence of the gallery, artist profiles, and clippings. It reflects the art scene in China at the end of the 1980s and throughout the 1990s.

AAA is in process of digitalizing the material.

Nigel Cameron Archive

Nigel Cameron is a historian, curator and art critic based in Hong Kong. As a contributor to the South China Morning Post and Orientations magazine, Cameron wrote extensively on Asian art and culture from the 1970s to the 1990s. In 2005, Cameron donated his personal collection of 1655 typescripts and clippings, dating from 1972 to 1994.

Tokyo Gallery Archive

The Tokyo Gallery in Japan has been collecting documentation of contemporary art from China, Japan and Korea. In 2005, the gallery deposited a digital copy of the collection with AAA. The collection covers the period from the 1980s to the 1990s. It includes artist profiles, photographs, pricelists of artworks, correspondence of the gallery, and leaflets on art events that took place in Japan. The collection reveals exchanges between China, Korea and Japan during these decades.

Wu Shanzhuan Archive

Born in China in 1960, Wu Shanzhuan's work spans over twenty years and includes paintings, installations, performances, photography and drawing. Wu donated his personal archive to the AAA in 2003, and the collection includes artist writings, sketches and drawings. In 2005, the archive published the monograph Wu Shanzhuan Red Humour International (in collaboration with Inga Svala Thorsdottir) to bring to light this prolific body of unpublished work.

Profiles of Roberto Chabet

This collection includes Roberto Chabet's personal photographs of his work, letters, writings and exhibition notes, clippings from various books, newspapers and magazines, and invitations from the 1960s to the present. It also includes documentation of Chabet's works in public and private collections.

Born in Manila in 1937, Roberto Chabet is known as the father of Philippine Conceptual Art. Since the 60's he has been producing experimental works which foreground idea over form. Also a curator, he has organized many exhibitions of contemporary art, mostly by artists who were his students at the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts, where he taught for more than 30 years. He was also the first Museum Director of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and initiated the prestigious Thirteen Artist Award, which gives recognition to outstanding young artists.