Carol Vogel announces a new initiative at the Guggenheim designed to make the museum more open to and current on global art. For anyone who has been watching what is happening in the Gulf States, however fitfully, the move will be recognizable. Cultural institutions around the world are beginning to create their own ‘synthetic’ story of art history. Now the Guggenheim is getting UBS to help fund their version:

The project, to be financed by UBS and called the Guggenheim UBS Map Global Art Initiative, will begin with South and Southeast Asia. The museum will invite a curator from each region to New York for overlapping two-year residencies; they will work with a team of Guggenheim curators to identify new and recent artworks that best reflect the range of talents in their areas. The artworks they choose will be acquired for the Guggenheim and will also be the focus of exhibitions that open at the New York museum and then travel to two other cultural institutions.

Guggenheim officials are currently in discussions with museums in Singapore and Hong Kong about taking the first show. The exhibitions will be supplemented with a series of public and online programs based on the theme of cross-cultural exchange.

Guggenheim Project Challenges ‘Western-Centric View’ (New York Times)