The Collector | Chinese art museum finally takes shape with big-ticket items bought on a billionaire’s budget
Completed in 2011, the Zhi Art Museum near Chengdu is finally open for business, under the direction of businesswoman Zeng Baobao
Seven years ago, construction was completed on the Zhi Art Museum, which is located at the foot of Laojunshan, in Xinjin, about an hour from Chengdu, in Sichuan province. It had been commissioned by Hong Kong-listed Fantasia Holdings.
Visitors to this part of southwestern China, where Fantasia has also built an eco-resort and residential properties, have been impressed by the shimmering, slate-coloured building designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. But online comments have pointed out that it is rather odd that there is no art in the art museum. So, is it just another pretend museumbuilt to accessorise a Chinese property development project?
Four years ago, Fantasia executive director Zeng Baobao, who is a niece of former vice-president Zeng Qinghong, hired independent art adviser Valerie Wang Conghui to help her build a collection, and they have since bought more than 200 works.
Ms Zeng [Baobao] doesn’t just hand me a big cheque and ask me to go shopping! She and I have been going to practically every major auction and art fair around the world
The Collector caught up with Wang at the Hong Kong spring sales last month. Just how crazy a shopping spree has it been to create a collection from scratch for someone who, according to research group Hurun Report, is estimated to be worth 7.6 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion)?
“Ms Zeng doesn’t just hand me a big cheque and ask me to go shopping! She and I have been going to practically every major auction and art fair around the world,” says Wang, who lives in Beijing. “Initially, there was no clear strategy about the museum’s content and we bought what we liked: fun works such as Li Jin’s contemporary ink paintings. But as we spent more time looking, a theme for the museum developed naturally: modern and contemporary art that conveys traditional Chinese aesthetics.”
The museum has splashed out on works by Zao Wou-Ki and Zeng Fanzhi. It is necessary to include the “two Zs” – whose works are, respectively, the most expensive in the modern and contemporary Asian art categories – for the museum to become an international authority on Chinese art and to lend its collection to other institutions, Wang says. But, she adds, the museum’s budget is too modest for them to take home paintings such as Zao’s 14.12.59 (1959), which sold for HK$176.7 million at Christie’s Hong Kong on May 26.
She refuses to disclose how much the museum has spent on art so far.