Chau Chak Wing Museum

If the measure of a good museum is how many little impulses of curiosity it induces, the Chau Chak Wing Museum is on the right track.

It's a brain twisting experience across 4 floors of everything from Australian 19th and 20th century art to Indigenous Australian cultural objects, Egypt and the Mediterranean, to Australian natural history and a China gallery.

Photo: Mark Bowyer Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney

Photo: Mark Bowyer Thylacine aka. Tasmanian Devil - Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney

Photo: Mark Bowyer Chau Chak Wing Museum, Sydney

Like me, you'll probably find yourself needing a few visits to feel like you've digested things. After 3 visits I'm sure I'd still find things of interest on a return.

The Chau Chak Wing Museum is a superbly curated and presented monument to Sydney University's 19th century quest to be a prestigious place of learning with international standing. The university was building collections that would impress the 19th century mind. That's when many of the artefacts on display were collected - or stolen. I'm guessing quite a bit of the 19th century taxidermy followed the needless slaughter of animals too.

It would have been good to see a more self-aware appraisal of the values that created these collections in the 19th century.

The China exhibition is a highlight but from memory, South East Asia and the Pacific - our neighbourhood - are largely missing. 19th century prejudices die hard.

The Chau Chak Wing Museum is the result of the philanthropy of the Chinese Australian property developer of the same name. Chau has been a prolific donor to Australian universities and political parties. His alleged associations with the Chinese Communist Party have resulted in controversy and he has been in the press in 2021 following a high-profile defamation case.

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