written by SISI WANG
Christina Yu Yu sits behind a simple and uncluttered desk, file folders placed neatly to one side and not much decoration on the wall behind her. She, a modern, fashion forward, executive-looking young woman is the first Chinese director of the Pacific Asia Museum (PAM) since its founding in 1971. The museum, an ancient Chinese palace-styled building in Pasadena, is an old-fashioned shell around this contemporary woman who bursts with vibrant ideas.
USC took over the museum in 2014, and it has been 9 months since the university brought on Yu Yu to initiate a new era of leadership.
Before USC approached Yu Yu for the director’s position, she was a curator of Chinese and Korean art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where she worked mostly in scholarly research. For Yu Yu, the transition is more of an adjustment than a change of pace. “Being a curator was a comprehensive job anyway, because I also needed to work with the administrative side,” she says. So the new position means “only a small identity shift.”
Even so, her directorship has brought its own set of challenges, both practical and ideological. Yu Yu has spent the first half-year considering whether or not the building can withstand earthquakes or if the museum’s computers are up-to-date. Yet her tenure has been very much about reconciling the old with the new, the backward with the forward, and the past with a brave future.
PAM is a signature building in Pasadena. Built in 1924, it first served as a private art center, and then became a public museum in 1971. Possessing over 15,000 artworks ranging from 4,000-year-old decorative pieces to contemporary commercial work, PAM has taken on the mission of introducing Asian and Pacific art to the United States. However, in late 2013, it ran into serious financial troubles. That was when USC stepped in to take over.
Yu Yu is not the only one experiencing a shift in identity. All museums are struggling to keep up with the changing tastes of the world around them. Securing funding is particularly difficult, especially when an increasingly tech-dependent public may regard museums as “old-fashioned.”
Therefore, museum managers must focus on “audience strategies.” Yu Yu has said in a TV interview that many people still view museums in a stereotyped light — as “a royal necropolis where only antiques from thousands of years ago are on exhibit.” She thinks that a crucial part of reaching a broader audience, of finding a common language with infrequent museum-goers, is to hold performances and workshops that immerse viewers into a direct, visual experience. “Free Sundays,” for example, held on every second Sunday of the month, have successfully drawn in the crowds. Their goal is to break down the community’s assumption that art in PAM is just for the artistically educated, the elegant higher class. After all, for the community of Chinese immigrants living in San Gabriel — a population that PAM is trying to target — this art is about them. PAM wants them to feel closer to the art, which is already part of their culture.
The next step for Yu Yu is to bring in younger audiences, such as college students, and to create more interactive art programs. Now, with USC backing them, Yu Yu is optimistic about the future.