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Hu will go to US to meet with Guggenheim Foundation

Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) will go to New York later this month to meet with executives from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to discuss plans for the establishment of a Guggenheim branch museum in his city.

Meeting the media yesterday, Hu said that a personal visit to the Guggenheim Foundation is necessary to salvage the project that has been mired in controversy and budget problems for more than a year.

Hu said he took it as a good sign when he recently received a letter from Thomas Krens, director of the foundation, in which Krens said he wanted to meet Hu in person to talk over the project.

Krens' letter shows that the Taichung Guggenheim project is still alive, Hu said. Besides, the central government, including President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Premier Yu Shyi-kun, promised earlier this month that the plan will not be allowed to fall through, Hu stressed.

Hu said he wants to speak about three things with Krens: whether the foundation will revive the Guggenheim Taichung project, whether the foundation will agree to locate the proposed branch museum at the Shuinan Airport in the Taichung suburbs instead of within the city and whether the foundation will still provide Taichung with their expertise if Taichung builds a different world-class museum instead of the Guggenheim branch.

The upcoming visit to New York has raised questions regarding Hu's health. Hu, formerly a foreign minister and a Taiwanese representative to the US, suffered a stroke due to fatigue during his last visit to the US two years ago. Hu is still recuperating.

Building a Guggenheim branch was a major part of Hu's campaign platform when he ran for Taichung mayor, but the city government and the foundation were unable to ink an agreement because of budget problems.

The central government finally agreed on Aug. 31 to earmark NT$2 billion (US$58.99 million) in the 2005 budget to help finance the project, but by that time the foundation had reportedly given up on the idea.

The foundation is a collaboration of Guggenheim museums in New York, Venice, Bilbao and Berlin; the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg; the Albertina in Vienna; the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna; and the Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie/Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany.
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