Paris’s Musée Rodin Signs a Major Partnership Deal With China to Open an Outpost in Its Technology Capital

Paris’s Musée Rodin has announced that it will lend its name and
send works to a Chinese art center dedicated to the French sculptor
in the southern city of Shenzhen. The decision to join forces with
the Chinese government as Beijing threaten to crack down on the
pro-democracy movement over the border in Hong Kong is bound to
raise eyebrows.

News of the partnership emerged on Monday, October 7, during a
Franco-Chinese cultural forum in the city of Nice. The Paris
institution dedicated to Auguste Rodin has agreed to sell 50 bronze
editions of Rodin’s work to the new institution. It is also loaning
another 50 works for at least five years.

Called the Rodin Art Center, the new institution is being
funded by the Chinese state, a spokesperson for the Musée Rodin
tells artnet News. It will be built over the next two or three
years, they confirm.

“Since 2014, the Musée Rodin has been approached many times by
Chinese cities or Chinese companies to form a Rodin collection in
China,” the spokesperson explains. “But often these companies had
very commercial projects with not enough cultural, educational, or
philanthropic projects, and so the Rodin Museum refused them.”

Rodin enjoys a huge profile in China, on par with the writers
Honoré de Balzac and Victor Hugo, according to the spokesperson.
The planned art center will, no doubt, highlight Rodin’s interest
in Chinese art, which he collected. He also inspired
significant Chinese sculptors, including Sui Jianguo.

The full cost and a specific opening year of the Rodin center
have not been confirmed, but the museum says that more details will
emerge during President Emmanuel Macron’s planned trip to China
next month. The decision to move forward with the project,
which was first mooted last June, comes after officials from the
Paris museum toured different Chinese cities. Besides Shenzhen in
the Guangdong province, which borders Hong Kong and Macau, they
visited Hangzhou in Zhejiang province, and Xiong’an New Area
southwest of Beijing in Hebei province.

“Shenzhen seemed to us to be the [city] with the most important
assets: a political will in favor of culture and education, very
professional and efficient teams, both in the city and in the
Futian district,” the spokesperson says, adding that its
multicultural character is another asset. In a statement, the
museum confirms that the site of the planned art center is on
Antuoshan hill in Shenzhen. Rodin’s home in Meudon also stands on
high ground. The Villa des Brillants is now the Musée Rodin in
Meudon.

The museum spokesperson says that was initially “cautious” about
the Chinese proposal. However, following the guarantee provided by
the Chinese ministry of culture as well as the Chinese embassy in
France, the Musée Rodin gave the green light to the project.

France is at the forefront of Western museums’ expansion in
China. The Centre Pompidou is set to finally open a satellite in
Shanghai on November 8 after years of trying. Its museums are also
increasingly entrepreneurial, like their UK counterparts. Shenzhen
is already home to a design museum created in partnership with the
Victorian and Albert Museum in London.

The Musée Rodin was founded to house the collection that Rodin
donated to the French state after his death. It includes his own
sculptures and drawings, as well as work produced by his
contemporaries. The Musée Rodin in central Paris and his home
in Meudon attract around 700,000 visitors a year.

The post Paris’s Musée Rodin Signs a Major Partnership Deal
With China to Open an Outpost in Its Technology Capital
appeared first on artnet News.