In the Guggenheim's Footsteps

Museums are expanding and opening satellite branches on far-flung islands in the Middle East. Individuals are building public institutions to house their private collections. It's an international museum building boom, as has been noted here and here, and each week seems to bring news of another project. We've already mentioned the new digs for the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, Francois Pinault's hard-won Venetian customs house, and the Walmart heiress' vision for Bentonville, Arkansas. Here's a working list of other white cubes (so to speak) on the horizon:

Ullens Center for Contemporary Art
Beijing, China
Opens November 45, 2007
Belgian collectors Guy and Myriam Ullens are turning this one-time munitions complex into 26,000 square feet of gallery space for international and Chinese art.

Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA
Los Angeles, California
Opens early 2008
Eli and Edythe Broad are behind the more than 60,000 square feet of gallery space LACMA is acquiring, and they're promising to loan pieces from their personal collection.

9 government-founded Chinese museums
Dujiangyan, China
Open October 2008
The government of this city in the Sichuan Province is giving each of eight contemporary Chinese artists (Zhang Xiaogang, Wang Guangyi, Fang Lijun, Yu Minjun, Zhou Chunya, He Duoling, Zhang Peili, and Wu Shanzhuan) a museum to run. It's also opening a public museum.

Pompidou Centre
Shanghai, China
Opens before 2010
After bringing Western art to China, the contemporary art museum may venture to India.

Contemporary Art Museum of the Presidio
San Francisco, California
Tentatively opens 2010
Gap founders Don and Doris Fisher are developing a museum in the Presidio, a national park in San Francisco, to house their impressive collection. It will have more exhibition space than SFMoMA.

Guggenheim
Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi
Opens by 2011
It seems only natural that the Guggenheim would extend its global sprawl to this burgeoning cultural capital.

Louvre Museum
Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi
Opens 2012
The government of France has made a deal — one that ruffled not a few feathers — with Abu Dhabi to the tune of a rumored $800 million to $1 billion for a "desert Louvre."

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