by Jon Burris, November 10,2006
Like the Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Pompidou Centre, Paris is exploring ways to establish a presence in other parts of the world and what better location than Shanghai, a city that is closely identified with China’s economic growth? As reported in the November issue of The Art Newspaper, officials from the Pompidou accompanied French President Jacques Chirac to Shanghai at the end of October to finalize plans for a branch museum to be completed by 2009 and located in the LuWan District in a 54,000 sq.ft. former police station that is to be rennovated and expanded in size over the next two years. The Pompidou Shanghai will exhibit work from the permanent collection of the Pompidou, Paris. It is yet to be determined if the new museum will establish a collection of its own. The president of the Pompidou, Bruno Racine said that he believes China will become one of the major players in the international contemporary art scene. Claude Hudelot, the French cultural attache in China visited sites in both Beijing and Shanghai that were offered to the Pompidou before settling on the LuWan property in Shanghai.