The Collector | He Art Museum, like China’s other private museums, faces many challenges – an impressive art collection isn’t one of them

Homme et Femme Nus (1968) was one of the highlights at Christie’s London sale on June 18. The phone bid was anonymous at the time, fielded by Rebecca Wei just before she stood down as Christie’s Asia chairman. But it has now emerged that the late Picasso painting of an intimate couple in green tones was bought for the He family’s new private museum in Shunde, designed by Tadao Ando, that is opening in March 2020.

No doubt, the 200 million yuan (US$28.3 million), 16,000 square metre He Art Museum will look lovely. The Chinese name of the museum is a homonym of the family sur­name that means “harmony and peace” and the spiral-shaped, light-filled structure will be surrounded by a soothing, land­scaped garden with water features.

Even if it is backed by a collec­tion of 400 to 500 pieces that includes Zhang Daqian and Lin Fengmin in its modern Chinese art segment, a good Liu Ye and Ding Yi under its contemporary Chinese art holdings, and Anish Kapoor, Olafur Eliasson and Damien Hirst under its Western contemporary art section, the new museum may struggle to stand out among China’s many others.

After all, a lot of Asian collectors chase the same “safe bets” of the art world: an East-West mishmash of familiar male artists plus Yayoi Kusama. Even Ando’s architec­ture doesn’t make it special. The Japanese “starchitect” is popular in China for his East Asian aesthetics and he has designed many cultural institutions, such as the Shanghai Design Centre, the Aurora Museum and the Shanghai Poly Grand Theatre.

One challenge for He Art Museum is its location. Shunde is a small Guangdong district, and locals haven’t developed a gallery-going habit. It is known for having some of the best food in the country, but not much else.