M+ plus MoMA

Jamie Liu

West Kowloon Cultural District will sign deals with top US museum - the Museum of Modern Art or MoMA, according to sources.

M+ Museum will sign a memorandum of understanding with MoMA, sources said.

Such an agreement could foster closer cooperation in areas such as the sharing of art collections and research, based on previous deals the cultural district has signed with other foreign institutions.

This would be the first time that MoMA has collaborated with the city's museums in such a format.

MoMA is deemed one of the world's most influential museums contributing to modern and contemporary art, with a collection of around 200,000 works such as paintings, sculptures, photography and films spanning 150 years. The most famous pieces include The Starry Night by Van Gogh, Campbell's Soup Cans by Andy Warhol and Les Demoiselles d'Avignon by Pablo Picasso.

In a cultural summit in March last year, WKCD signed agreements with 21 art institutions from 11 countries, covering areas of cooperation from touring exhibitions, and collection sharing to educational programs.

The deals saw the Hong Kong Palace Museum and M+ collaborating with top museums including Japan's National Art Center, Britain's Victoria and Albert Museum, Spain's Museo Nacional Del Prado and Musee National Picasso-Paris in France.

Other partnering organizations included film archives, art conservation and research institutes and theater associations.

Betty Fung Ching Suk-yee, chief executive of the WKCD Authority, said then the high-profile summit aimed to showcase Hong Kong's role as an East-meets-West center for cultural exchange as stated in Beijing's 14th Five-Year National Planning.

The two museums in WKCD have had overseas crossovers that highlight cultural exchanges.

Hong Kong Palace Museum is currently staging an exhibition collaborating with France's Palace of Versailles and Beijing's Palace Museum, "The Forbidden City and the Palace of Versailles: China-France Cultural Encounters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries."

M+ will kick off a themed display featuring works of renowned Spanish artist Pablo Picasso next month.

jamie.liu@singtaonewscorp.com