Thu, Jun 06, 2002 page17

• Museum official says Taichung has long way to go

  TAIWAN BRANCH The director of the Guggenheim says there's a lot to be done before a branch in Taichung can be realized, such as a US$2 million feasibility study

  • By Douglas Habecker / CONTRIBUTING REPORTERIN TAICHUNG
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  Thomas Krens, director of the New York-based Guggenheim Museum, threw cold water on media speculation that Taichung could soon be home to a branch museum during his brief visit to Taichung this week, noting that the project would have to surmount a daunting number of non-artistic hurdles, including adequate financial backing.

  Krens, who arrived in Taichung on Tuesday at the invitation of Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強), stressed that his visit did not mean the Guggenheim Museum was considering Taichung as a potential location for its first branch in Asia.

  Despite his meeting with the mayor, local officials, scholars and architects -- who presented proposals for a Taichung Guggenheim Museum -- the director said that a feasibility study had yet to begin.

  "My being here doesn't signify any commitment. ... This isn't an active project. My being here doesn't mean one thing or another. I've visited 100 cities in the last two years," Krens told the Taipei Times, adding that his brief visit did not allow him to comment on Taichung's suitability for a project.

  Yesterday, the director reportedly skipped planned meetings with Taichung city councilors and a group of Taipei architects, opting to visit the National Palace Museum in Taipei instead.

  Krens said that the primary responsibility for launching a project lay with local authorities, who had to find financial backing and address a variety of practical issues, including adequate local infrastructure and political support.

  Any city requesting a Guggenheim feasibility study would first have to pay US$2 million, which would cover the museum's analysis reports, architectural studies and the hiring of professional consultants to evaluate such an investment.

  "It's not any good to build a museum that no one goes to, or in a city that no one visits, or one that is in an unsustainable position. That's not in anyone's interest," Krens said.

  Due to the high chances that the city or museum or both would find reasons not to continue after a feasibility study is conducted, the director said such proposals were usually approached with low expectations.

  In the event that a project was approved, local officials would then have to find funding, which runs into the "hundreds of millions of US dollars," he said.

  Noting ongoing Guggenheim projects in Rio de Janeiro and St. Petersburg, Krens said that his museum currently had no plans in Asia, following the cancellation of a project in Tokyo, but added that an Asian project would be attractive, given the region's size and significance.

  Despite reports that Taichung was also competing with Shanghai to get a museum, Taichung is apparently the only Asian city to be actively pursuing the Guggenheim, according to local art authorities.

  Beatrice Peini Gysen-Hsieh (謝佩霓), assistant professor at the Feng Chia University Graduate Institute of Architecture and former curator at Taichung's National Taiwan Museum of Art, said that a recent conversation with Shanghai Art Museum Director Li Xiang-yang (李向陽) confirmed that the Chinese city was no longer interested in a Guggenheim project.

  Furthermore, the museum's overtures to other cities, including Hong Kong and Singapore, had failed to win any interest, she said.

  Since winning the Taichung mayor's seat about six months ago, Hu has widely publicized a desire to elevate Taichung's profile on the world stage and boost investment and tourism by bringing a Guggenheim to the city.

  The mayor has made frequent comparisons to Bilbao, Spain, where the New York museum successfully opened a branch in 1997. The project, developed with the financial backing of the Basque government, was a linchpin in a plan to revitalize the local economy and transform Bilbao into a major metropolitan area.

  Krens did acknowledge that smaller cities like Bilbao often stood a better chance of winning bigger projects, due to available incentives and resources, and the fact that larger cities often already had their investments and plans.

  Referring to the Bilbao Guggenheim, he said the potential pay-off from such a project fell into three main areas -- boosted tax revenues, which allowed Bilbao to pay off the project's cost within five years; the creation of an attractive investment environment for a wide range of businesses; and the attention of the global media, which in itself is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

  Since its founding about 60 years ago, the Guggenheim Museum has become a leader as an exhibitor of modern art and currently has branches in New York, Las Vegas, Venice, Bilbao and Berlin, with significant expansions taking place under Krens leadership over the past decade. Comparing his museum's expansion model to free trade, the director said that it provided access to various cultural narratives and puts an institution in a position to better engage in cultural exchanges.

  "The Guggenheim has proposed a model that is very controversial. Some think it's the future and others think it's the end of the world. The truth is probably somewhere in between," said Krens, referring to the museum's international expansion.

  "I don't think what we do is wrong. Contemporary art is not the property of the West."

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