An occupational hazard of running a museum founded by a real estate development firm: you might have to move when the company opens a shiny new development. The A4 Contemporary Art Center in the industrial city of Chengdu is due to reopen in a new building 4km away from its original location in April 2017. Backed by private real estate developers Chengdu Wanhua (Wide Horizon) Investment Group, the new A4 is part of a luxury lakefront property development in Chengdu’s Tianfu New Area.
“The previouslocation failed to meet our future needs,” says museum’s director Sunny Sun Li,“for the development of international and domestic avant-garde art and Chinese newmedia art.” The 3,500-sq.-m museum designed by Antoine Predock includes 1,500-sq.-mof exhibition space over three floors. The original location, which opened in2008, launched its Young Curators Project in 2011 and an international artists’residency in 2013. The new venue will open with an exhibition of video art (CreateSpaces, 15 April-16 July 2017).