Beijing's Ullens Center looking for new owner

The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, has developed into a hot spot in Beijing’s art scene.[Photo provided to China Daily]

A Beijing landmark starts looking for a new owner as incumbent foreign patron says age isn't on his side, Lin Qi reports.

In the past nine years, the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art has evolved into a landmark venue in Beijing's 798 art district.

It has staged many high-profile exhibitions and shown works of major Chinese and Western artists, including Xu Zhen, William Kentridge and Taryn Simon.

But an announcement of the Guy and Myriam Ullens Foundation on Thursday suggested that UCCA's Belgian founder, Guy Ullens, is now looking for a new owner for UCCA - a "younger patron who can continue to develop this important arts institution".

Ullens explains in the statement that he is in his 80s and feels the need to hand over the ownership, and that he would sell artworks in his own collection through private channels and at auctions later this year. He says he would continue to support the center till a new benefactor turns up.

Ullens, who is known as a "patron of the arts in China for more than 30 years", constantly traveled to the country in the 1980s for family business in sugar and other food-related trades. He has assembled a number of Chinese artworks, the larger part being the contemporary pieces of leading artists such as Gu Wenda, Wang Guangyi and Zhang Xiaogang.