
The FT’s How to Spend It magazine has a roundup of private museum initiatives. Budi Tek’s three art-based public ventures get some ink there. But it also turns out there is another art trend surpassing even the private museum, Tek’s in on it with Budi Desa.
We also learn that “Bangladeshi industrialist Rajeeb Samdani, whose company Golden Harvest has interests in agriculture, aviation, commodities, food, logistics and technology, co-chairs [the Tate’s] south Asian acquisitions committee. He and his wife Nadia are building an arts centre and sculpture park on a 100-acre property within sight of the Assam Hills in Sylhet. It promises to rival Inhotim, the stellar arts complex part-founded by mining magnate Bernardo de Mello Paz.”
His first publicly accessible gallery, the Yuz Museum, was opened in Jakarta in 2008 by the former president of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri, “who is my friend”, becoming, he adds proudly, “the first private museum in Jakarta to be accredited by the government”. Last year a second museum followed in Shanghai, housed in a former aircraft hangar in what is known as the West Bund Cultural Corridor. A third, the Budi Desa art park, is currently in development in Bali to which the Jakarta museum will be transferring. “It’s at the design stage, but hopefully we’ll start construction at the end of the year and finish it in two years”, says Tek. He warms to his theme: “As a collector, I am greedy. I want to collect more and more, but I like to share. There’s a difference between sharing a good dinner and wine with friends, and sharing art with the whole population”. Not least the kudos and recognition it brings: “You would not be interviewing me if I hadn’t done this; you would not be interested.” Quite so. “It’s what makes me excited; it’s what makes me satisfied.” It is also, he adds, what he’ll be remembered for.
New private art museums (How To Spend It)