When it comes to Changsha's most modern art attractions, the Li Zijian Art Museum and the Xie Zilong Video Art Museum are definitely frequently nominated. The two museums were only completed and opened to the public in recent years, and their domestic popularity is low, and they have not yet formed the impression of Changsha in the minds of most foreign tourists. Because the Li Zijian Art Museum and the Xie Zilong Museum of Image Art are adjacent to each other, this list classifies the two museums as one attraction.

Li Zijian Art Museum

Located in the Yanghu Wetland Park area, the Li Zijian Art Museum covers an area of 15.3 acres and has an indoor area of more than 25,000 square meters, making it the world's largest solo art museum for artists (on July 16, 2017, it was certified by WRCA, the British world record certification body). Since it is an artist's personal art museum, it is necessary to get to know the painter Li Zijian.

Li Zijian was born in Shaoyang, Hunan Province, and moved to Los Angeles in 1988 at his own expense. During his stay in the United States, Li Zijian won the appreciation and help of the famous Buddhist figure Shi Xingyun (often called Master Xingyun by believers), and created a large number of realistic oil paintings in retreat, laying the foundation for the well-known "Humanity and Love· Li Zijian's oil paintings around the world". Among them, "Nanjing Massacre" was commissioned by Shi Xingyun to create. During the global tour, "Nanjing Massacre" has become the focus of media attention day by day. Many Chinese people may not know Li Zijian's name, but they have seen this painting somewhat. It is worth mentioning that Li Zijian painted three paintings of "Nanjing Massacre", the first and second of which were donated to the Memorial Hall of the Nanjing Massacre and the National Museum of China. The third largest, created during the financial difficulties of building the museum, was collected by entrepreneur Xie Zilong with a lot of money, and is permanently displayed in the Li Zijian Art Museum.

Although it is a private art museum, it was officially announced that it would be open for free on the day of its completion. The museum is divided into several areas, including Exhibition Area A, Exhibition Area B, Exhibition Area C (temporary exhibition area), Mind Space, Meditation Island, Water Concert Hall, etc., and the main position is naturally the permanent exhibition of Li Zijian's oil paintings. Rooms A1-A4 bring together more than 330 paintings from Li Zijian's decades of artistic career. The lineup of oil paintings in the "Humanity and Love: Li Zijian Oil Painting Global Touring Exhibition" is basically here, and the audience who has not experienced this world-class large-scale public welfare touring solo exhibition can savor and feel it here. "Nanjing Massacre" is located in a prominent position in the exhibition area, showing its status as a treasure of the museum. Li Zijian's representative works also include oil paintings such as "Country", "Mother and Daughter", "Family Letter", and "Childhood", which show the great love of the world. These works are delicate and tender, far-reaching and expansive, which can always touch the hearts of the viewers and express Li Zijian's love for his hometown. There is also a historical exhibition hall in the permanent exhibition hall of Li Zijian's oil paintings, where the audience can learn about Li Zijian's life and deeds from many graphic and historical materials, and feel the growth process of his artistic creation.

Another highlight of the museum is the "Xingyun Master Calligraphy Museum", which covers an area of more than 1,000 square meters, mainly exhibiting Shi Xingyun's characters and deeds, as well as his representative "one-stroke" calligraphy works. It is worth noting that most of the works here are "blind books" created when Shi Xingyun was close to blindness. If you are a true believer, I believe it will be worth the trip.

Xie Zilong Image Art Museum

Compared with the Li Zijian Art Museum, the Xie Zilong Museum of Image Art may be more famous, and its geometric aesthetic architectural shape has become a popular photo background for many tourists. The founder of the art museum is Xie Zilong, chairman of the People's Pharmacy. In addition to being a successful businessman, he is also a true professional photographer, many of his photographs have been published in professional journals at home and abroad, and have won many national and international photography awards, so he also serves as the chairman of the Hunan Photographers Association. Because there was no real photography art museum in China before, Xie Zilong founded this museum with the original intention of "returning image art to a palace-level art museum".

Xie Zilong Image Art Museum covers an area of about 10 acres, with a construction area of about 10,000 square meters. Even inside the museum, visitors are attracted by the unique architecture. The overall appearance of the art museum is a chic geometric shape, and the gray and white clear water concrete presents a chic cold color style, which can be combined with the sky of any kind of weather to present a different sense of modern art. The interior is also the same fair-faced concrete wall, revealing the mystery of a material. The depth of the space is revealed through the clever arrangement of light and shadow, which is fascinating and intoxicating. This practice of using only fair-faced concrete materials in the walls, ceilings, floors and plank roads is very avant-garde, so in the early stage of construction, the concrete has also undergone a series of improvements, resulting in the whitest fair-faced concrete building in China. The large amount of white space not only highlights the artworks in the museum, but also provides more possibilities for the reservation of other works.

The museum has three floors, all of which have exhibition halls, but there is also a bookstore, restaurant and other service areas on the first floor. Except for "There is a Memory, Called Lulai" on the first floor and "Looking through the World's Top Video Library Collection" on the second floor, other exhibitions change from time to time. Interested visitors can follow the official real-time information. Relatively speaking, "there is a memory, called Lulai" is more popular, and the display is not a photographic work but a limited and rare 21 Lulai engineering prototypes in the world, among which the transparent version and the gold version of the limited custom prototype are a feast for many photography enthusiasts. "Looking Through the World's Top Image Library Collection" is a collection-level catalogue of works by nearly 50 photographers from 8 countries published by Tassen Press.

It has to be said that many visitors do not come here for the exhibition, but to take personal art photos with great aesthetics. However, there are many tourists on holidays, and it is not easy to take a single photo, so it is recommended that tourists with conditions come at a staggered peak.

Information References:

Li Zijian Art Museum

Admission: Free

Opening Hours:

See the specific arrangements for national holidays

Summer: Tuesday to Sunday 9:30-18:00 (last collection at 17:30)

Winter: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-17:30 (last pick up at 17:00)

Address: No. 385, Section 1, Xiaoxiang South Road, Yuelu District

Xie Zilong Image Art Museum

Admission: Free

Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00-18:00 (see specific arrangements for national holidays)

Address: No. 387, a section of Xiaoxiang South Road, Yuelu District