Michael Govan, the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Lacma), is in Hong Kong this week to formally sign an agreement with Budi Tek, cementing the partnership between the museum and the Indonesian-Chinese collector. The landmark arrangement, which involves establishing a joint foundation, was announced at last year’s Art Basel Hong Kong; the latest development involves establishing an endowment between Lacma and Tek’s Yuz Museum in Shanghai. Tek, who is ill with pancreatic cancer, owns 1,500 mainly Chinese contemporary works by artists such as Xu Bing and Yang Fudong.
Govan tells The Art Newspaper that “we’re laying out a roadmap during our meeting in Hong Kong. This is a complex step-by-step process, which will involve putting the collection into a foundation first, as we’re finding friends and sponsors. The idea is that [Budi Tek’s] collection resides in China at the Yuz Museum; this is for China, just like our collection is for Los Angeles, but the works could be loaned to us—as we are lending works to China.” A board of trustees will be set up to oversee the collection and foundation.
