Yuz Foundation Art Coming to LACMA This July

Zhou Tiehai, Venus and Cupid, 2006. Yuz Foundation Limited (c) Zhou Tiehai

Three years ago LACMA and the Yuz Foundation announced an ambitious collection-sharing deal. The Foundation runs a Shanghai museum displaying the 1500-piece collection of Indonesian-Chinese industrialist Budi Tek, mostly contemporary Chinese art. About 20 works from that holding will go on loan to LACMA this summer in "Legacies of Exchange: Chinese Contemporary Art from the Yuz Foundation." 

This will be the first Yuz loan to LACMA. The Yuz deal has occasioned both superlatives and skepticism. Based on the Yuz Museum website, the collection and programming skew toward big installations and pop and street art influences. LACMA's Yoshitoma Nara survey will travel to the Yuz after closing here.

"Legacies of Exchange" is organized around the theme of encounters between China and the West. Those looking for meme-like goofs on Euro art history will find a Joe Camel Venus (Zhou Tiehai) and a chimpanzee Death of Marat (Qiu Anxiong). Other artists include Ai Weiwei, Huang Yong Ping, Wang Guangyi, and Xu Bing. The exhibition runs July 4, 2021 to Mar. 13, 2022 in the Resnick Pavilion.

Ai Weiwei's Zodiac Heads will return to LACMA for the show (they were displayed at the museum a decade ago). The bronzes are to be conserved al fresco on the Smidt Welcome Plaza for two weeks beginning May 29.