How great thou art

[Photo provided to China Daily]

Song Art's opening has not only given Beijing a new landmark but has also created a new platform for international exchanges in culture, he says.

Fan, who was director of the National Art Museum of China in Beijing from 2005 to 2014, says rising prices of artworks everywhere have put many well beyond the reach of public museums.

"The rise of entrepreneur-turned-collectors has compensated in this field as these people share their artistic assets with the public.

"There are a considerable number of these collections, but more importantly they are gradually building a systematic hierarchy of international art that is absent in the public collections. That is a significant contribution to the broadening of people's vision of global art."

Other new art initiatives of Chinese entrepreneur collectors include How Art Museum in Shanghai, opened in September by Zheng Hao, a hotelier who owns another gallery in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, and Powerlong Museum in Shanghai, which opens on Nov 18, and which is built on the collection of Xu Jiankang, chairman of the real estate company Powerlong Group, and who hails from Fujian province.