After a year of discussions, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and M+ in Hong Kong, a contemporary art museum in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon arts district, have formalized an agreement that could soon see them share shows, research, and donor development resources.
The agreement marks MoMA’s first collaboration of this type with a major institution based in Asia. It’s set to cover six areas, including from curatorial and conservation research, staff training, and the co-organization of future exhibitions.
In a ceremony on Wednesday at MoMA held to announce the partnership, officials overseeing M+ and the West Kowloon Arts District Authority (WCKDA), a government body that raises funding to operate it, said that institutions of M+’s size are navigating rising operational costs. They’re also facing difficulty bringing in the same amount of visitors that they did pre-pandemic.
The agreement is part of a broader effort by the WKCDA to grow its network of international partners, which have now reached more than 20 other museums globally. Last March, during a cultural summit held in Hong Kong to promote the city’s investments in the arts, the WKCDA revealed that it had signed more than a dozen agreements with international institutions, including the Centre Pompidou, the Tate, and the Picasso Museum had been signed. The MoMA agreement is the most extensive one so far, according to M+ officials.
M+ opened to the public in 2021 and houses a rich collection of Chinese contemporary art donated by collector Uli Sigg. The agreement offers the young museum broader access to the workings of a heritage institution like MoMA, which is now 96 years old and saw an estimated 2.7 million visitors in 2023 alone.
“We are not an island,” said Suhanya Raffel, director of M+, on Wednesday. She went on to describe how museums use loan agreements with international partnering institutions to cope with “limited resources.” (Memoranda of understanding are commonly used in international relations and cultural institutions to formalize research collaborations or trade partnerships before committing to binding agreements.)
For MoMA, the alliance gives its a stronger foothold in Hong Kong, which considers itself a financial center comparable to New York and London. Still, despite all the commerce that takes place there, Hong Kong doesn’t yet have as sprawling a museum scene as those international hubs.
“With M+, we can explore new curatorial directions and expand audience engagement globally,” said outgoing MoMA director Glenn Lowry in a statement.
In a conversation with ARTnews during the ceremony, Betty Fung, who has served as CEO of the WCKDA since 2021, said that the organization is still developing ways to gain funding and to build ties with individual private donors in a way that more closely resembles those of peer institutions in the West. Donor development is only part of the agreement, according to Fung.
In February, Fung warned to local outlets that Hong Kong’s $2.75 billion endowment, established by the city’s legislature in 2008, could dry up without outside resources. The museum recorded more than 4 million visits during the 2022–23 period. M+ drew 2.7 million visitors, while its neighboring museum, also overseen by the district authority, brought in 1.25 million people. The WKCDA reported a deficit of over HK$1.3 billion in 2023.
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