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COOPERATION: (from left to right) Thomas J. Berghuis, curator of Chinese Art from Future Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Cai Guoqiang, and Alexandra Munroe, Samsung senior curator of Asian Art from Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation (COURTESY OF SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION) |
Walking into the cavernous space of New York's Guggenheim Museum, contemporary artist Cai Guoqiang looked up to the ceiling where he once hung full-sized cars exploding into colorful electric fireworks and said it felt like "visiting a former lover."
"The time I spent in this museum was very significant to my career," he said. "Like a beacon, it lights up myself and allows me to see my past, present and future."
As one of the honorary advisors to the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, Cai said new "love stories" will be written for this iconic space. And now, more than ever, the newest expressions of China's artistic soul will reach a global audience.
A reportedly $10 million grant from Hong Kong-based Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation—its largest grant ever—has been given to the Guggenheim to commission new works from Chinese artists. The works will enter the museum's permanent collection to provide the public a chance to experience China's emerging artistic identity.
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INSTALLATION VIEW: I Want to Believe, by Cai Guoqiang, exhibited during February 22 to May 28, 2008 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York City (COURTESY OF SOLOMON R. GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION) |
The museum will commission major works from at least three artists or collectives under the initiative, and plans three exhibitions by 2017 with accompanying lectures, educational programs and public events. It is the third project between the museum and the foundation. Their first collaboration in 2008 was for Cai Guoqiang's explosive I Want to Believe. Another project—The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia—followed a year later.
"These were two smaller programs that really set the basis for long-term collaboration and initiated a discussion that has been going on between the foundation and the Guggenheim for a few years now," foundation chief executive Ted Lipman told Beijing Review." The outcome of which is the project we are embarking on."
Like the "love story" described by Cai Guoqiang, "certainly there is a great deal of love and admiration between the museum and ourselves. I think they realize that the foundation has made a difference in the world of Chinese contemporary art—indeed, in the world of contemporary art in general. One the objectives of this project is to have Chinese contemporary art become more integrated and part of the global art culture today," Lipman said.
The two organizations share a view that contemporary art plays a "positive and transformative" role in the world, he said. The six-year relationship has fostered complementary interests and objectives.
"Contemporary art can open people's minds to new possibilities and change the world," said Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation.
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