Under Francesco Bonami’s direction, By Art Matters has embraced a curatorial model that favors instinct, experimentation and intellectual risk. Photo: Qingshan Wu, courtesy of By Art Matters
Late last year, I had the privilege of visiting Hangzhou, China, as the guest of By Art Matters, a remarkable museum that opened in 2021. The museum is situated in a sprawling complex designed by Renzo Piano, and across several floors and two buildings, it takes an innovative approach to curation, both in the subjects it tackles and in the way exhibitions are organized. Located just an hour by train from Shanghai, it is truly a must-visit for anyone traveling in the region. At least part of its success can be attributed to the work of curator Francesco Bonami, who serves as its director. I caught up with Bonami in Shanghai to learn more about how this one-of-a-kind institution came to be.
In person, you told me a little bit about how you came to know By Art Matters through your friend Renzo Piano, who designed the complex it occupies in Hangzhou. I’d love to hear more about these early stages. How did the institution’s curatorial ethos evolve?
My friendship with Renzo Piano began through a book, Dopo tutto non è brutto (After All, It’s Not Ugly), which included a chapter on one of his buildings. That text amused him enough to get in touch, and a genuine connection followed. When Lilin later asked Renzo to design the Ooeli campus, she also asked whether he knew anyone who could help with the art space that would become By Art Matters.
The name was proposed as a contraction of the phrase “by the way, art matters.” Even without a literal meaning, it conveyed the essential message: a place where art always matters more than the strategies built around it. That principle reflects Lilin’s philosophy, one shared fully from the outset.
During an early visit to Hangzhou, the site was little more than a tent with chickens wandering around. Renzo immediately grasped the location’s orientation and potential and, over lunch, sketched the concept with his signature green Pentel marker. That was around 2014, and the core idea of that drawing remains visible today in how millions of visitors move through the campus each year. Credit belongs to Renzo for a vision that extends far beyond architectural “hardware” into long-term spatial experience.
Curator Francesco Bonami. Courtesy of By Art Matters
When I had the pleasure of visiting Hangzhou, By Art Matters had just opened an innovative retrospective showcasing the work of Inga Svala Thorsdottir & Wu Shanzhuan. I also took in the previously opened exhibition featuring outfits from every collection by Martin Margiela. How do these diverse shows reflect the vision of By Art Matters?
By Art Matters maintains a deliberately flexible approach to programming. There is a conscious avoidance of following the usual strategies of the art world—partly out of conviction, partly out of a desire for a more direct, fresh and even naïve attitude. Projects are considered individually, and choices are made based on what resonates most strongly at a given moment rather than on external expectations or positioning.
What are some of your favorite shows that you’ve done with By Art Matters, and why?
The first exhibition, “A Show About Nothing,” was especially successful. Other highlights include “Mind the Gap,” a long-distance conversation between Li Ming and Darren Bader, as well as “360 Degrees Painting.”
You’ve programmed high-profile shows across the globe. How do you try to balance geographic specificity with making an exhibition that will resonate with someone in the international art world? How has that been demonstrated at By Art Matters?
Finding that balance remains a challenge, since audiences differ significantly across contexts. Assumptions that feel natural to a Western curator can be far from obvious to younger curators or local teams. Working through those gaps—often by questioning what is taken for granted—has been an ongoing and instructive process at By Art Matters.
You’re known for dispensing insights about the broader art world on your Instagram. Could you speak about some trends you’ve noticed in recent years, ones you either endorse or do not care for?
Following or responding to trends is risky, since by the time they are acted upon, it is often already too late. Instinct—one’s own or that of trusted collaborators—matters more, along with a willingness to risk mistakes rather than chase relevance.
If you had to offer advice to a young artist starting out today, what would it be?
Work toward success, but remain a servant to personal ideas rather than to the ideas of others.
What have you learned about Chinese audiences in your time working with By Art Matters?
The most striking quality is the openness and flexibility of mindset. Growing up in a Western context often meant being asked “why?” repeatedly, with long delays before a project could be realized, if at all. In China, the response is more often “why not?” followed by rapid realization—sometimes almost too rapid!
“La roue = c’est tout” with works from Jean Tinguely: Fatamorgana, Méta-Harmonie IV, 1985 (in the back), Klamauk, 1979 (in the front). 2022 (c) foto daniel spehr
With his chaotic absurdist performances of motorized machines, Swiss artist Jean Tinguely embraced both the principle of entropy and the noise of contemporary society to create a disruptive form of artistic expression that parodied automation, consumer culture and the art world itself. A pioneer of multimedia and multidisciplinary approaches, Tinguely worked with scrap metal, discarded materials and industrial parts, aligning with Dadaist traditions while pushing them into more radically experimental territory. His work dissolved the boundaries between material, language and public interaction, anticipating both contemporary media art and relational practices. The climax of his oeuvre, Homage to New York (1960), famously self-destructed—partially exploding in the sculpture garden of the Museum of Modern Art. It was an explicit attack on the mechanization of labor, institutional authority and the commodification of art, rejecting permanence and objectification in favor of process, failure and spectacle.
This year, 2025, marks the 100th anniversary of his birth—a milestone certain to prompt renewed interest in his multifaceted practice through exhibitions, retrospectives and critical reassessments. Since its opening in 1996, Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland, has played a central role in preserving and promoting the artist’s legacy while becoming a fixture of the annual art world pilgrimage to Basel, thanks to its progressive programming and ambitious commissions. Located on the banks of the Rhine, the museum houses the world’s largest collection of Tinguely’s kinetic works—218 sculptures spanning from his early reliefs and 1960s collaborations to the darker, more monumental machines of the 1970s. More than half of these works are regularly on view and kept in working order, sustaining the spirit of movement, instability and joyful collapse that defined his vision.
Jean Tinguely in front of Dernière Collaboration avec Yves Klein, 1988. Photo Credit: Vera Isler
For the centennial of Jean Tinguely’s revolutionary legacy, Observer spoke with Museum Tinguely director Roland Wetzel about how the artist’s disarmingly playful, radically innovative and still strikingly relevant work continues to meet contemporary societal needs and how the museum’s program keeps it alive by engaging artists who share his boundary-blurring, multimedia spirit.
For Wetzel, two perspectives connect the museum’s exhibition program with Tinguely’s legacy. “One reaches back to Dadaism and Marcel Duchamp, where fundamental questions about what art is were absolutely vital to a younger generation of artists,” he explains. “The other is that we’re still living in a time comparable to the 1960s. I’d say we are in a new epoch that began around that time, when artists started asking themselves what role they could and should play in society.”
Tinguely was never a classical modernist bound by the fixed framework of modern art. “He constantly tried to reach beyond it—to connect with people, to expand his audience and to make his work relevant to everyday life,” Wetzel says. That impulse feels especially resonant today, when many artists are again considering where we stand, how we live and how art can meaningfully enter that conversation. “Tinguely always opened his art to daily life, and I think that’s something essential in his practice.”
Tinguely also embraced accident and chance. He rejected the idea of a pre-established script or fixed concept, choosing instead to surrender to possibilities that emerged in the process itself—as the work interacted with its surroundings, its context and the world at large. He welcomed this dialectical relationship between the work and the world. In that sense, his practice anticipated what we now call relational art: it invited participation not only from viewers but also from the environment, always seeking dialogue with its context. His art was never a static object—it was alive, contingent, responsive.
Wetzel also points out how deeply collaborative Tinguely’s process was. “A lot of his work didn’t come out of a studio in isolation—it came out of interactions with friends, other artists, curators,” he explains. “He was involved in organizing, curating and building ideas together. That was a core part of his practice.”
For the centenary, the museum recreated Tinguely’s art ghost train, reimagined as a large-scale dynamic installation designed by British artist Rebecca Moss and Swiss artist Augustin Rebetez. In a nostalgic return to traditional lunapark attractions, Scream Machines takes visitors on a haunting journey through demons, monsters and other eerie figures designed by the artists, paying homage to Le Crocrodrome de Zig et Puce, the 1977 work Tinguely created with Bernhard Luginbühl, Daniel Spoerri and Niki de Saint Phalle for the opening of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. That historic project was spearheaded by Pontus Hultén, the legendary museum director who championed Tinguely throughout his career. An exhibition currently on at the Grand Palais in Paris explores the creative partnership between Hultén, Tinguely and de Saint Phalle.
In researching this installation, Wetzel was struck by the extent of Tinguely’s involvement in the original Pompidou project. “He wasn’t just one of the participating artists—he helped coordinate people, manage finances, source materials,” Wetzel explains. “His role went far beyond that of a traditional artist. He was always crossing boundaries, thinking beyond the usual frameworks, reaching into new territories.”
The installation has been a major success with audiences of all ages, showing that Tinguely’s playful chaotic spirit still resonates in an era often numbed by media overstimulation, societal alienation and both emotional and intellectual disaffection. “With this project, we’ve been able to reach an even broader audience,” Wetzel notes. “While our museum already draws a diverse public, the Ghost Train connects on another level. It’s playful, it’s accessible—you don’t need any prior knowledge to have a meaningful art experience.” For Wetzel, this kind of crossover is exactly what Tinguely envisioned—especially in his desire to reach children. “Tinguely always said children were his most important critics. If it works for them, it can work for many others, too. His art was meant to operate on multiple levels, and we’ve really tried to carry that thinking forward.”
Interaction with the broader public—and with public life itself—was central to Tinguely’s practice. Accessibility and engagement, even beyond the confines of the art world, remain priorities for the museum’s programming today. Part of its identity lies in creating spaces where people of all ages can encounter art in playful, open-ended ways. “We believe it’s just as important to be welcoming to older audiences and to offer meaningful experiences to people of all generations,” Wetzel says. “That openness is something we care deeply about.”
One earlier project at Museum Tinguely involved collaborating with window-front designers. “When you do an exhibition in a shop window, you reach a completely different audience—and it’s visible 24/7 in the public space,” he explains. “These might seem like small interventions, but they’re incredibly effective ways to expand access. And that’s something Tinguely always tried to do.”
Today, the museum serves several publics—it’s not just one audience, Wetzel clarifies. As he notes, the museum is often a place where people—especially children—experience art for the first time. “That was important to Tinguely, and we’ve really built on that,” he says, adding how programming for young children begins as early as age two. “They can come in, be active, play, explore—and leave with a positive, hands-on experience of what art can be. That kind of accessibility, that invitation to engage through the senses, is something quite unique. I don’t know many other museums that offer the same potential for early connection.”
The museum’s dedicated Art Education Department is one of the central pillars of its mission. It collaborates not only with local schools but also with institutions such as the High School for the Arts and the High School for Music, fostering a dense and long-standing network across Basel’s educational and cultural ecosystems.
Set to be unveiled at the end of September, the museum’s next exhibition will feature Scenes from the Invention of Democracy, a poignant video installation by Austrian artist Oliver Ressler that interrogates what democracy still means in a world where the term is increasingly emptied of substance. A work and a question that feel more urgent than ever, as democratic rights and civil liberties are steadily eroded across multiple countries, with national politics veering toward authoritarianism dressed up as conservatism and protectionism.
Opening in December is an extensive survey dedicated to the underrecognized yet quietly brilliant Chinese American artist Carl Cheng, “Nature Never Loses.” Spanning six decades of work, the exhibition highlights Cheng’s pioneering investigations into the intersection of art and ecology, his questioning of institutional relevance and his prescient explorations of technology’s role in society. Organized by The Contemporary Austin in partnership with Museum Tinguely, the Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania and Bonnefanten in Maastricht, the show underscores the international reach of the museum’s program. In recent years, this model of cross-institutional collaboration—pooling resources and cutting costs while mounting ambitious projects—has become a strategic hallmark of Museum Tinguely’s approach.
“When I started here 16 years ago, we focused more on Tinguely’s role models and his historical context,” Wetzel explains. “But increasingly, we’ve been engaging with contemporary artists who reflect on and respond to Tinguely’s practice from today’s perspective. That feels more relevant—and more compelling—for a younger generation.”
Jean Tinguely looking for materials in 1960. Photo Credit: Photographer unknown
Yet despite Tinguely’s pioneering and playful use of technology, Museum Tinguely remains focused on more materially and sensorially anchored forms of artistic expression. While the museum doesn’t reject digital work entirely, it isn’t a central focus for now, the director explains. For Wetzel, it remains crucial to create moments of real presence—tactile, embodied encounters that happen in and around the museum. “As so much of life is already spent in front of screens, it feels even more vital to offer a more comprehensive, embodied experience,” he says. “Whether it’s through Tinguely’s kinetic works or our special exhibitions, we want visitors to engage physically, emotionally and socially.”
Today, the museum plays multiple roles within Basel’s art ecosystem, Wetzel notes. It can be a place to spend a leisurely Sunday afternoon, but it also aims to be politically and socially relevant—whether through exhibitions or a year-round calendar of talks, panels and performances. “Our programming is quite wide-ranging,” he says. “We don’t focus on blockbuster shows. We focus on education, accessibility and making art approachable.”
Asked about the evolving role of museums in society, Wetzel stresses the importance of a clear ethical compass. For him, the idea that we can live together in a better way is a crucial starting point. “It’s not about making grand gestures, but about taking small, meaningful steps: creating space for people to come in, learn, reflect on their own lives and share those reflections with others,” he explains. “That’s how communities are formed—and I believe that’s something museums can and should help facilitate.”
In Wetzel’s vision, the museum must function as a public platform—a space for genuine exchange. In recent years, that commitment has expanded into talks, performances, concerts and events that deepen and broaden the exhibition experience. “Over time, our role has evolved,” Wetzel says. “Maybe 20 or 30 years ago, it was just about putting on exhibitions. Today, museums need to operate as public platforms—even at a grassroots level—to foster participation, welcome diverse communities and enable open dialogue,” he adds. This includes making room for different political perspectives while also being willing to take a stance. “In times like these, I think it’s essential that we speak up, stay relevant and above all, create spaces where people can come together.”
Tinguely’s kinetic art embraced chaos, chance and humor to critique automation, consumer culture and the institutions of modern art. Photo; Nanda Lanfranco
Nam June Paik Art Center Director Dr. Namhee Park. Courtesy NJP Art Center
Dr. Namhee Park was recently named the new director of the Nam June Paik Art Center, the Yongin, South Korea institution tasked with protecting the Korean-American artist’s legacy, curating shows highlighting his work in classic and new contexts. Paik seems to be having a moment, with a new documentary and his prominent placement in the Museum of Modern Art’s recent show about video art. But when doesn’t it feel like that? Observer recently caught up with Dr. Park to hear more about the institution’s relationship with the ever-relevant artist.
Why do you think the work of Nam June Paik remains so beloved today?
Nam June Paik was born in the 20th Century, but his spirit was already living in the 21st Century. If his art was avant-garde in the 20th Century, it can be considered contemporary realist art in the 21st Century. Since it is realist art as a ‘total reality’ that hybridizes almost all areas of intuitive but philosophical, sensuous but technical, it can be felt emotionally and methodologically more familiar than in the past, and from a media archaeological perspective, it can be felt as nostalgia. In that sense, his art is an ‘old future’ and is in touch with the art of the contemporary digital media environment.
His art and life attitude of “no boundaries,” “curiosity” and “infinite connection” to all things in the world, including media, information, technology, nature and planets, are still vivid values to his contemporaries. When I took office last year, I proposed ‘hyperconnectivity,’ ‘heritage community’ and ‘polyphony’ as the core values of the Nam June Paik Art Center to evoke and spread this spirit in his art to the contemporary era. This is because his art has already penetrated the current hyper-connected spirit and phenomena.
Nam June Paik with ‘Cyberforum’ (1994). Photo By MICHAEL MACOR/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images
How is his legacy perceived in Korea?
Although he spent more time in Japan, Germany and the United States than in Korea, the affection and pride for Nam June Paik and his art is very significant in Korea. We Koreans are very grateful to Nam June Paik, not only for his status as an internationally renowned artist and his outlook for future society but also for his contribution to driving Korea toward internationalization. In particular, since the NJP Art Center opened in 2008, it has been working hard to preserve Paik’s legacy by collaborating with many artists at home and abroad. The roles of former directors Youngchul Lee, Manu Park, Jin-seok Seo and Kim Seong Eun were crucial; they were at the forefront of promoting Nam June Paik’s legacy more widely through exhibitions and research. However, the awareness and promotion methods of its importance do not lead to active or full support.
His legacy, which includes his role in the art world and his global perspective and desire for world peace, still requires much time to receive more empathy, broader awareness, and practices. As the fifth director of the NJP Art Center, I presented the new vision to create a ‘shared museum connected through art and technology’, which aims to hyperlink Nam June Paik’s legacy with contemporary times. The NJP Art Center, named “the house where Nam June Paik lives for a long time” by Paik himself, serves as a platform for the post-Nam June Paik through his legacy. Continuing research related to Paik every year through the academic journal NJP Reader is also a process of practically understanding his legacy and putting it into practice.
Of course, besides our museum, more and more people, individually or collectively, recognize and study Paik’s legacy as very important. The NJP Art Center is working to preserve his legacy by collaborating with major Korean institutions such as the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea and the Leeum Museum of Art.
I understand that some of his video work is very hard to maintain these days, given that much of the technology it used is no longer manufactured. What is your ethos towards conservation?
Not only Nam June Paik’s art, but also media-based works in which electronic devices play an essential role in the realization of art from the late 20th Century to the present are being reviewed from various angles, as the object of exhibition, collection and research, regarding their operation, sustainability and preservation. In particular, many are interested in Paik’s works using television monitors because they are the most original examples of this media art. The fact that CRT monitors are no longer manufactured due to the technological development of television may cause concern that problems with the operation or preservation of his work may arise. I thought that by constantly asking, ‘How did Paik deal with this problem?’ we should not forget his openness, flexibility and quickness while looking at the various situations, testimonies and records in which he worked.
His work, which pioneered video art by placing television at the center of his art, was a combination of the developer’s attitude and artistic experimentation from the beginning. Paik was always open to many situations and had the agility to apply various elements, even when confronting variables or unexpected situations. For example, Zen for TV (1963), too, was created by chance in such circumstances. Considering the attitude of Paik and the next steps after the monitor production is discontinued, we keep the following two things in mind: The first is the opinions of the assistants and technicians who worked with Paik, and the second is the remediated perspective of media in the context of technological evolutionism.
For example, Jung Sung Lee, who worked as a technician for many works of Paik, presents a clear opinion on the monitor issue in The More, the Better (1988), owned by The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA Korea), which is persuasive: “Recently, MMCA Korea announced that as a final restoration method, they would apply the latest technology only in part of the monitor while maintaining the form of the existing cathode-ray tube monitor. However, since the essence of a media artwork is the content of the media inside the monitor, I believe the restoration should be done by replacing it with a new LCD monitor, in line with technological development. Suppose the restoration continues to maintain the original cathode-ray tube. In that case, breakdowns will increase, and the subsequent restoration will become more difficult, ultimately increasing the possibility of raising public skepticism about the work.”
Lee’s comment suggests that replacing it with new media is possible, considering the technicians’ opinions and the essential content of the media that I mentioned earlier. To summarize, my opinion so far is that, just as Nam June Paik’s creative journey was, media such as television are open to the possibility of replacement due to the evolution of technology, which, I believe, will more firmly defend Paik’s legacy.
Nam June Paik Art Center. Courtesy NJP Art Center
What are some of the key challenges facing your institution and how do you plan to tackle them?
The NJP Art Center opened in October 2008 and is now in its seventeenth year. We have worked hard to integrate Nam June Paik’s art into the museum system that collects, exhibits, researches and educates, and now we have reached the point of taking another leap forward. Above all, it is a time when institutional and content conditions must be improved to rebuild as a contemporary media art platform where Nam June Paik and post-Nam June Paik come together. As is the case with many art museums in the era of local autonomy, as time goes by, physical spaces such as exhibition halls and storage facilities initially set up need to be reorganized. In addition, realistic development plans are continuously being considered, such as securing budgets for continuous program development, improving old facilities and public recognition and increasing accessibility.
Many issues are directly related to budget, and various strategies are needed to solve them. We are currently seeking support and cooperation from companies from which we can secure financial resources. Meanwhile, regarding content, the NJP Art Center has reached a point where it is necessary to expand the public forum further so that many researchers can participate. We have been sharing our research through the symposium ‘Gift of Nam June Paik’ and NJP Reader, but we are working on creating ways to share the perspectives and opinions of more researchers.
Part of your mission is to “discover the future Nam June Paik” through your art prize. What are the qualities of that future Nam June Paik?
Nam June Paik was an avant-garde artist full of humor and diligently explored new things. The Paik of the future will artistically embody thoughts that can have as fresh a shock as Paik’s impact on humanity. In other words, the ability to drive the positive function of art artistically and technically is required, under Paik’s spirit, such as child-like curiosity, scientist-like inquisitiveness, avant-gardeness of overthrowing fixed ideas and forms, union/fusion rather than separation/division, and the desire for peace rather than war.
Paik’s work was heavily influenced by the then-new concept of mass media. What do you think he’d make of this era where mass media seems to be dying?
Nam June Paik’s art started with the most popular medium, television, but utilized various technologies and media, including robots, satellites, and lasers. As for mass media, Paik paid attention to it as a system to share information with many people with the advantages of serving as a field to connect and share people and thoughts and also recognized the disadvantages of its one-way communication. When he attempted ‘satellite project’ such as Good Morning, Mr. Orwell (1984), he maximized and demonstrated the advantage that it was possible to have a meeting without the immediacy of information and physical communication through live broadcasting by trying to communicate two-way rather than one-way between cities with a broadcasting system.
Now, this is being done not only by mass media such as television but also by social media connected through the Internet. Paik would have been very interested in this situation for its freedom from the monopoly or fixity of the media and its autonomous activity of new media. He might even be happy to think we are getting closer to spirituality, which he said was the most crucial medium after the laser. He may have been pleased to see that mass media is transitioning to its new role rather than dying and that we are moving toward a world where the openness and diversity of media have expanded. In that sense, he is truly in the time of our old future.
What is your favorite work by Paik in the museum’s collection?
Among Nam June Paik’s many works, my favorite is Moon is the Oldest TV (1965). The work reveals his original understanding of the medium and intuitively reflects the Eastern and Western understandings of time. In this work, created in 1965, the moon’s shape appears different depending on the time of day. The lunar cycle from the new moon to the full moon is divided into twelve television monitors. By inserting a magnet into a cathode-ray tube to interfere with the electromagnetic signals of the internal circuit, Paik made various moon-like shapes appear on the television screen using only those signals. Viewers have an opportunity to think about the length and depth of time, the moment and eternity.
The moon, the oldest light of humanity and the only satellite of the earth, was the object of projection of countless imaginations and aspirations even before scientific exploration. At the NJP Art Center, after the video E-MOON (1999) was added to the original twelve monitors, this work consists of thirteen monitors. The moon, which shows time by recombining it spatially, is formatively meditative and overflows with poetic imagination.
