When French President Jacques Chirac opens the first exhibition in Asia of one of France's artistic treasures, Picasso's The Parade, in Hong Kong, he will also be unveiling what is hoped to be a new era in cultural cooperation.
Chirac will be in the territory for barely half a day at the end of a swing through China aimed primarily at winning French industry some of the business being generated by the authoritarian giant.
But the visit will be significant as it satisfies another plank of the trip -- to share with China France's rich cultural heritage.
Hong Kong has been chosen as the setting for the first overseas expansion of France's renowned institution of modern art and design, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris.
The center announced Monday it had hitched itself to one of five consortia of Hong Kong developers bidding for a string of cultural centers in a so-called arts hub on the Kowloon harborside.
If the bid goes through, the Pompidou center will run, provide and purchase art for display in a museum of modern art, which has already been dubbed HK-MOMA.
"While the HK MOMA will benefit from our expertise and our collection, it will develop its very own personality, providing a unique blend of Western and Asian art," the center's president Bruno Racine told reporters.
Picasso's stunning, colossal The Parade is deemed an apt choice to launch the French-Chinese initiative. Painted on an actual stage curtain and depicting a backstage theatrical scene, it brims with life waiting to be unleashed at the lifting of the drape.
The masterpiece is on loan from the Pompidou center. Its exhibition at a huge new shopping mall in downtown Hong Kong represents only the 11th time it has gone on show in 50 years.
HK MOMA will be one part of a grander complex called the West Kowloon Cultural District that Racine hopes will become a focus for modern art from all over the region.
If the deal goes ahead, it will mark the institute's first foray outside of home territory.
Although Racine said the museum had no plans for world expansion like its American peer, the Guggenheim, it had been looking to branch into China.
"We have a pattern of relationships with museums in cities all over the world, but not in China," he said. "We made a decision some time ago that we needed to be in China."
The consortium presented the opportunity when it approached the institute for input.
In what amounts to a sweetheart deal, the Pompidou centre will pay nothing towards the construction of the center, although it will have a hand in its design.
The museum's expenses will be guaranteed by a proviso built into the tender deal that the developer will cover all shortfalls in costs for the first 30 years, Racine said.
"That is important as it gives us the room to draw up a long-term vision for HK MOMA, to build it into one of the world's leading museums."
The proposed art-hub scheme, valued at around HK$24 billion (more than US$3 billion), has sparked controversy in Hong Kong, where it has been criticized as a white elephant in the making.
The local art community is up in arms on the issue too, and news of the possible participation of one of the world's most prestigious art institutes has left it cold.
"It's just another real estate deal that's using the promise of art as a gloss to make it look good," said John Batten whose John Batten Gallery has been exhibiting modern local artists for eight years.
"You don't need the Pompidou Centre to run a museum here -- we can do it."
Questions have also been raised about whether the institute would allow its acquisitions policy to be influenced by China, which has long suppressed what it considers subversive art.
"I don't foresee any problems," Racine said. "Our acquisitions committee will be made up of of independent people whose views and policies will be made on artistic, not political, judgements."
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