Budi Tek, Influential Collector Whose Private Museum Helped Bring Contemporary Asian Art to International Stage, Has Died at 65
Budiardjo “Budi” Tek, an prominent collector who established 2 personal art museums in Asia and developed an extraordinary collaboration with 2 global organizations all the while assisting to develop area for modern Asian art on the worldwide phase, passedaway at 65 on March 18 in Hong Kong.
According to an obituary that Tek’s household published online on Saturday, the cause of death was pancreatic cancer, which he hadactually been fighting with for the past 6 years. The obituary was shared on Instagram by Ashok Adiceam, a previous director of Tek’s Yuz Museum in Shanghai.
“As one of Asia’s top collector, Mr. Tek gathers however neverever thinkstwice to share. He invests his lifetime cultivating skills constantly,” his household’s declaration checksout.
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Tek was one of the most prodigious collectors of modern art in Asia, focusing especially on Chinese and Asian art, though his collection likewise consistedof significant works from the West. His increase on the worldwide gathering scene was swift. He started gathering in 2004, established his Yuz Foundation in 2007, and, in 2014, opened the Yuz Museum in Shanghai. He appeared on ARTnews’s Top 200 Collectors list each year inbetween 2012 and 2017.
“Your eye for gathering, the tradition you leave behind, your organization acumen and the way in which you fought cancer is an motivation to us all,” composed Jonathan Crockett, Phillips’s chairman of Asia, composed on his Instagram of Tek’s passing.
The Yuz Museum went on to endedupbeing extremely prominent both within China and abroad. In 2018, Tek revealed at a panel conversation in Hong Kong an unmatched relocation: the Yuz would kind a collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Soon afterwards, the Qatar Museums in Doha concurred to establish shows with those 2 museums. Tek prepared to ultimately to contribute his holdings to the collaboration formed inbetween the 3 organizations.
A part of the continuous collaboration inbetween the 2 organizations is the Yuz Museum’s existing exhibit of Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, which opened at LACMA in April2021 It is the veryfirst exhibit to program at both LACMA and the Yuz.
“Budi was a real client and a real pal to artists,” stated Marc Glimcher, president and CEO of Pace Gallery, which represents Nara. “He assisted develop Shanghai as a international art center by developing the Yuz Museum, a real 21st-century design, where an private’s patronage and participation benefited the whole city.”
Budiardjo Tek was born in 1957 in Jakarta, Indonesia to Chinese momsanddads. He ultimately headed up PT Sierad Produce Tbk, a poultry business.
During his lifetime, he generated what can just be explained as a huge collection of modern art; his holdings ultimately consistedof more than 1,500 artworks, numerous of which were huge in scale. Adel Abdessemed’s Like Mother, Like Son (2008), for example, is madeup of 3 aircrafts woven together. In 2006, Tek opened the Yuz Museum in Jakarta, Indonesia, and in 2014, he opened a 2nd, much bigger branch of the organization in Shanghai.
Unlike most of the hundreds of personal art museums that have grew up in China in current years, Tek’s was made from a considerable collection. In Shanghai, the Yuz has installed landmark exhibits, consistingof ones of Giacometti and Warhol. In partnering with another organization on the Pacific Rim, like LACMA, Tek was looking to produce an organization that would outlast him. The cross-national collaboration would guarantee that a public museum might steward the holdings a personal one—a hard proposal in China.
He assoonas stated, “[I]f you appearance around New York, you have the Frick, the Whitney, the Guggenheim—all of these were when personal museums. I desired the Yuz Museum to likewise one day endedupbeing a public organization.”
In partnering with the Qatar Museums, Tek comprehended the threats he was taking by workingtogether with an organization in a Muslim-majority nation, at a time when China was breaking down on Islam. In 2019, he informed the South China Morning Post, “We have a strong cultural authority here and they will evaluation our programs,” referring to authorities in China. “We have a great relationship with them and we make sure the reveals will be in the interest of the public rather than damaging public interest.”
In addition to these significant collaborations, Tek was likewise included with Tate Britain in as an Asia-Pacific member and collector member. In 2017, he was granted France’s Officer of the Legion of Honor.
Due to his healthproblem, Tek was on a objective in current years to develop a longlasting tradition. In 2019, he informed Artnet News, “Because I got pancreatic cancer 3 years ago—and I’m still alive 3 years on, and I plan to makeitthrough long into the coming years—the desire in my heart is to do something priorto I’m gone.”
He included, “My life is going to be ending—everybody’s life is ending—but the artwork will have a much longer life-span than us, duetothefactthat they tape-recorded history. It’s extremely unique for me to be the keeper of this history.”