China is a latecomer in the field of art museums. Therefore, there is a lot to be done to raise the awareness in the public and improve operation in art museums themselves; how can art museums, as a part of the culture, achieve their publicness. The publicness of art museums is not merely embodied in free access or attracting a wider audience base; it essentially lies on the way and the contents being presented—the open-mindedness of knowledge, the accessibility to the public, the co-building of sentiment, and the diversity of thoughts. Furthermore, the publicness of art museums also concerns democratic awareness and knowledge construction in the society. As a matter of fact, the publicness of art museums is essentially concerned with the cultural rights in the civil society. To put it in another way, the public is offered free access to art museums, and, more importantly, as the cultural subject, they can make their pursue and need to be heard. Seen from the responsibilities and functions of art museums, promoting public communications and dialogues and rendering public services are part of the function of knowledge production. It sets out to provide high-level knowledge and ideas, spirituality, visual connotations and spatial environment infused with cultural qualities. Hence, as we are marching forward to a civil society, the following two questions are to be answered urgently. How can we emphasize the construction of intellectuality of art museums? How can we improve and enhance the functions of art museums? This issue attempts to trigger a discussion on these two questions.
