HONORING AN ART LOVER
Chinese-Indonesian collector Budi Tek received the French government’s top award, the Legion of Honor, for his contributions to cultural links between China and France.
Chinese-Indonesian collector Budi Tek, who has been battling pancreatic cancer for nearly two years now, hopes he gets “some more time” to accomplish his mission of boosting the image of Shanghai’s Yuz Museum, which he founded three years ago.
The 60-year-old says this in the museum’s cafeteria in the booming West Bund cultural hub. Visitors find the museum — transformed from a hangar of Longhua Airport — a perfect weekend hangout.
Three exhibitions were on at the museum on Sunday: one of the Brooklyn-based artist KAWS, KAWS: Where the End Starts, which has concluded; Serpentine Door, the China debut of US artist Math Bass; and Will/We Must, which shows works of established Chinese artist Zhou Tiehai.
Tek says the main goal is creating a dialogue between Chinese and Western cultures. And for this, Tek received the Officer of the Legion of Honor from the French government.
It was bestowed by Alex Cruau, the consulate general of France in Shanghai, at the museum on Sunday night.
Attendees include artists and the museum’s patrons, including Ding Yi, Fang Lijun and Xu Zhen.
The Legion of Honor — instituted by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 — is France’s highest honor for military and civil achievements. It is given primarily to French citizens, but sometimes presented to foreigners.
Previous Chinese recipients are the Chinese-American architect I. M. Pei; Ba Jin (1904-2005), one of the country’s literary giants; and business magnate Ma Yun, or Jack Ma.
Tek, who accumulated his wealth from his agriculture business, started to collect works with a focus on contemporary Chinese art about a decade ago.
He has also contributed to Sino-French cultural links since 2011. He loans his Chinese art to French institutions, such as the Pompidou Centre.
His Yuz Foundation, which runs the Yuz Museum, sponsored Chinese artist Zeng Fanzhi’s solo exhibition in Paris in 2013.
Last year, a retrospective of Swiss master Alberto Giacometti in China was held at the museum, in collaboration with the Paris-based Giacometti Foundation.
Tek calls himself a “matchmaker”, who introduced Pompidou to the State-owned West Bund Group.
The two announced in July a five-year project from 2019 to 2024. It features many cultural programs, including showing the Paris museum’s collections at the West Bund art museum.
“The Legion of Honor is a great encouragement because it is a cultural recognition on the national level. It is rare,” says Tek.
And he hopes it can raise awareness of what his museum has been doing.
“We are proud to say that our exhibitions, our team and educational programs have attained international recognition.”
Tek says that when the museum opened in 2014, he told his staff they would have to work hard for five to seven years to make it popular. But it took less than two years. It tasted early success with the exhibition of Rain Room, a large-scale, immersive installation created by the artist group Random International.
Tek says the museum also introduces local artists with exhibitions.
He recalls hearing a collector say that he only collects antiques, which he believes are real treasures, and that he saw no good in contemporary works.
His response is: “China has produced a remarkable ancient civilization. To carry that heritage forward, people should work together to create a contemporary culture.
“Art museums are palaces of thoughts. It is our duty to manage museums so that they can make contributions to a country’s cultural progress.”
He says several contemporary Chinese artists exhibited at the museum have since been invited to show abroad.
“But we need to be very careful. I tell my team that one can make a wrong purchase, but one cannot stage a wrong exhibition.
“We normally spend two years preparing an exhibition. We try to spend wisely to make every exhibition a good one.”
Yuz Museum was one of the first cultural institutions in the West Bund, an area of 9.4 square kilometers on the western bank of the Huangpu River. It features such venues as the Long Museum, founded by the collector couple, Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei.
Tek says that when his friends visited Shanghai over a decade ago, they asked him if there were museums that exhibited contemporary art, but he could find very few.
Now there are many, he says.
“When the Giacometti show opened, I told West Bund Group officials the exhibition would boost tourism.”
He says they did not believe him until they saw the long lines outside the museum.
Tek says the director of a Paris museum once told him that a city without a good art museum is not respected.
“This museum (Yuz) belongs to everyone and Shanghai.”
It is our duty to manage museums so that they can make contributions to a country’s cultural progress.”
Budi Tek, Chinese-Indonesian collector