Robert Ho Hung-ngai doesn't believe artworks should be in exclusively private possession. 'I am an art lover, but I am not a collector,' the philanthropist says. 'Why should I have art just for my own appreciation? It belongs in a museum for the public to enjoy.'
As chairman of the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation, which he set up in 2005, the 76-year-old has been putting his money where his mouth is: he supports high-profile Chinese art exhibitions and performances around the world.
The latest project is Power and Glory: Court Arts of China's Ming Dynasty, which opened on Wednesday and runs until September 21 at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. Showing the collection from Beijing's Palace Museum, the Nanjing Municipal Museum and Shanghai Museum, this is the Californian institution's first collaboration with mainland counterparts.
The foundation mainly promotes Chinese arts and culture, says Ho, who made a stopover in his native Hong Kong recently on a business trip to Taiwan from Vancouver, where he has been living since 1989. 'We also want to encourage cross-cultural understanding. So, why don't we let the people around the world see and enjoy that?'
It matters little whether the art form supported is traditional or contemporary, visual or performing. Ho's foundation was, for instance, responsible for the 2007 exhibition Britain Meets the World: 1714-1830 at the Forbidden City jointly curated by the British Museum and The Palace Museum, while earlier this year it sponsored Cai Guoqiang's exhibition I Want To Believe. It was the first solo show of a Chinese-born artist at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
Last year, the foundation supported the overseas tour of Taipei-based Cloud Gate Dance Theatre's Wild Cursive performance in North America and Britain.
