Exclusive | Beijing contemporary art space UCCA sold to Chinese investment group, securing future of 798 Art District landmark

Deal for Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art ends year of uncertainty, and director is hopeful its new status as a foundation will help it raise funds, improve its exhibitions and attract more visitors

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The future of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing is now assured. Photo: Alamy

Published: 11:47am, 9 Oct 2017Updated: 10:30am, 10 Oct 2017

Beijing’s Ullens Centre For Contemporary Art has been sold for an undisclosed amount to a group of mainland Chinese investors, securing its future for now after a nail-biting year since the Belgian art collector Guy Ullens put it on the market.

Current director Philip Tinari will stay on at the 798 Art District landmark and run its art programme under a non-profit, tax-exempt foundation, a structure that should make it easier for the centre to find donors and give it more independence from the owners.

“The old model had worked under Mr Ullens’ generosity but he had set it up in 2007 as a private company. Now that the public-facing activities are run by a charity, we will be able to raise funds more easily and hopefully improve the production quality of our exhibitions and the size of the audience,” Tinari said by phone from New York, where he was a guest curator of Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World, a major exhibition of Chinese contemporary art at the Guggenheim Museum.

Philip Tinari, director of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Photo: Thomas Yau

An education business called Future Edutainment and Jason Jiang, a Chinese billionaire who founded advertising display company Focus Media, are among the investors.

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Ullens’ decision to sell the centre prompted a great deal of discussion about the long-term sustainability of China’s private museums and Kunsthalle-type art centres like the UCCA, which does not have its own collection.

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