West Bund Art & Design. Photo West Bund Art & Design.

After a decade of negotiations with Chinese authorities, the Centre Pompidou has now finalized the deal for the launch of its first Chinese outpost in Shanghai, set to open by 2019.

A spokesperson from the French institution has confirmed to artnet News that they’ve signed an agreement with the West Bund Group for a renewable five-year deal to stage exhibitions in the David Chipperfield-designed West Bund Art Museum, which is currently being built on the Huangpu River waterfront.

Over 20 exhibitions and events are planned to be held during these first five years, in what the French museum and the Chinese group have hailed as the “the most important long-term cultural exchange project between France and China.” Chinese art will be given an important place in the new gallery, according to the Guardian.

Construction on the 25,000 square-meter West Bund Art Museum began in late 2016, and is slated to be completed in late 2018, ahead of the grand opening in 2019.

The Centre Pompidou Shanghai, to be hosted in a wing of the West Bund Art Museum, is the latest in a series of outposts launched by the renowned Parisian center, whose 120,000-work collection is considered the second most important in the world after New York’s MoMA.

The museum currently has a branch in Metz, France, and another in Málaga, Spain, while another branch in Brussels is currently in the works.

The publicly owned West Bund Group has been turning part of the city’s formerly industrial Xuhui district into a seven-mile “cultural corridor” along the river. The West Bund Museum Mile also hosts the Long Museum, the Yuz Museum, the Shanghai Center of Photography, Tank Shanghai Art Park, and the Start Museum.


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