"We want to spark new activity and collaboration," he said, adding that the partnership fosters an increase in "depth, engagement and meaning."

The new focus on commissioning works for the museum's permanent collection builds the "DNA" of the institution, said Alexandra Munroe, Samsung Senior Curator of Asian Art for the Guggenheim.

"The museum sees the continuing augmentation of its holdings as the cornerstone of its Asian Art Program. In order to establish a truly global collection in the twenty-first century, the Guggenheim must nourish its current holdings of American and European art with masterworks of modern and contemporary Asian artists," she said in a museum release.

Munroe and Thomas J. Berghuis, newly appointed Chinese art curator for the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation, will head up the curatorial direction. Berghuis, a distinguished scholar of Asian art and archeology, is the author of Performance Art in China, published in 2006. 

"I am looking forward to working with artists, critics, and museum colleagues in China to further the understanding and appreciation of contemporary Chinese art within a broad global context," he said in a statement. "The Guggenheim offers a tremendous platform to advance the most innovative practices in greater China today."

From a curatorial perspective, Berghuis aims to "reorient the collection to an artistic medium in and of itself," he said, with interactive pieces and performances. The art will not be limited to paintings on the wall. A series of lectures and publications is aimed to enhance and broaden the educational offerings of exhibitions.

"Education really underlies everything our foundation does," Lipman said. "The Guggenheim serves as a good platform to reach out to a broader community. It's a single museum in New York but it's really a institution which presents us with a global platform. Visitors are usually from all over the world."

Global stage

The timing of this flood of investment into Chinese contemporary art is no accident. Over the past 20 years, Chinese art has soared to where it is today, Cai Guoqiang said, as a "platform for new possibilities."

"Chinese culture cannot be represented solely by art from the past," said Lipman, adding the Chinese art world has "come a long way since 1979." As the country's economy takes off, so has the creativity of its newest generation of artists. Arts and culture are growing by "leaps and bounds," he said.

"Contemporary art is a gateway to understanding China," he added.

The foundation sees Chinese culture as a long continuum, Lipman said, "from the ancient, classical culture that many people are familiar with to a living and growing culture of much influence."

Emerging artists from China have become hot commodities in the international art world. Auction sales in Hong Kong have reportedly quadrupled over the past five years, with contemporary works leading sales. In 2008, artist Zeng Fanzhi sold a piece from his Mask Series 1996 for a record $9.7 million. In 2010, Asia accounted for nearly a quarter of global auction revenue. A piece by artist Fang Lijun sold for $2.8 million--three times it's pre-sale estimate—at a 2011 Hong Kong auction. The total value of contemporary Chinese art sold at auctions has grown from less than $1 million in 2002 to $167 million in 2010, according to art mark advisors ArtTactic.

"And this figure could easily be double if you take into account pieces sold through galleries and art fairs," ArtTactic managing director Anders Petterson told BBC news.

Leading the vanguard are artists like Li Liao, 30, who worked at a Foxconn factory for 45 days and purchased the iPad Mini model he had been assembling for display in a exhibit called "Consumption" at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing. Another contemporary artist, He Xingyu, constructed a tank made out of tan leather for the same show, called "ON/OFF: China's Young Artists in Concept and Practice".

Today's generation of young Chinese artists have grown up in a country that is changing rapidly from day to day, and have come to be defined more by their differences than their commonalities, Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Centre, told The Economist. These artists are newly confident to make art that ostensibly has nothing to do with China and reflect a multiplicity of concerns and influences.

As China evolves, so too does its artists--and the emerging vanguard has discovered a global audience eager to see what's next.

The author is a free lancer in New York City