Retrospection Of Modern Civilization And Soul Soothing-Public Art Research On Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall Invaders

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall, built in 1985, is a memorial museum of a specific historical site. The design of the new hall extended in 2007 reflects the functional transformation of the museum as a global peace memorial. In time of the 70 th anniversary of the World Anti-Fascist War and Chinese People’s Anti-Japanese War, the museum is bestowed special duty of commemorating the victory. Therefore, the theoretical research on public art of NMMH is important both in theoretical value and practical significance.Public art, as a term in contemporary culture, interprets the nature of contemporary art and discusses the relationship between contemporary art and the exhibition of contemporary public culture. As an important memorial museum in China, the development process of NMMH embodies the common spirit presented in diversity. From the diachronic point of view, the dissertation sorts out museum’s 30-year development process which is composed of three stages. Taking history, politics, and culture of different ages into consideration, the dissertation focuses on 15 pieces of public art works to primarily analyze the public art of the new hall in the third stage. On the other hand, from the synchronic point of view, the dissertation employs the methods of ontology and epistemology. To analyze the components, the collective unconsciousness and the exhibition value of public art, modern scenery design theory, theory of empathy and ontology are used respectively in the dissertation.The dissertation lays its perspective on contemporary culture and analyzes the contemporary form of public art in the new hall. Based on the memorial hall, the dissertation analyzes the artistic nature of public art and the presentation, the foresight and the extension of contemporary culture spirit. The design concept and the practice approach of contemporary public art in memorial museum are also analyzed through international comparison. The dissertation reflects on the core value of public art in public education from three perspectives and proposes to build up the thinking of contemporary public art.The dissertation tries to get rid of the limitation of traditional research on museum design and builds up the cultural perspectives of contemporaneity and foresight to treat the connection between the practice of public art and cultural exhibition of memorial museum. By analyzing the development process of NMMH’s public art, the dissertation also attempts to construct the sharing system among contemporary museum, public art and cultural life in city.