Last November, crowds gathered at the newly opened Shenzhen Bay Culture Square – a series of futuristic pebble-shaped exhibition buildings clustered in the Chinese city’s Houhai financial district. Many stood near the waterfront watching a French aerial theater troupe soaring through the sky in parachute-like red skirts. Inside, visitors immersed themselves in light installations in a solo show by New York-based artist Anthony McCall, produced in collaboration with the Tate Modern, and wandered through ‘A Century of Chairs’, an exhibition from London’s Design Museum.

These performances and exhibitions were not simply imports from British institutions. Rather, they marked the beginning of multiyear partnerships spanning curatorial exchange, research, and resource sharing between these global art institutions. ‘It’s not that one institution learns more from another. It’s symbiotic,’ says Tim Marlow, the director of the Design Museum, of the three-year alliance (the Design Museum and the Tate have separate partnerships with Shenzhen Bay Culture Square). ‘We have a lot to learn from each other.’

Shenzhen Bay Culture Square is one of a growing number of museums entering long-term international partnerships that extend beyond one-off loans and traveling shows. Previously initiated and led by Western cultural institutions – through models that often emphasized cultural export – these partnerships are now becoming two-way relationships. Asian museums and foundations, especially, are increasingly shaping curatorial conversations within the region and globally, while new models of art-institutional exchange are emerging in the Global South.

‘There is a motivation on the part of Western institutions to really understand, and to be part of, the dynamism of rapidly developing cultural centers,’ says Gail Lord, cofounder and partner of global museum and cultural planning firm Lord Cultural Resources, which operates six offices in North America, Europe, and South Asia. At the same time, she notes that emerging metropolises such as Shenzhen pursue these partnerships to raise their global profile as they compete with other cities for investment and tourism.


The Bilbao Effect, updated

Museums and other art institutions joining forces is not a new phenomenon, but the terms are changing. The current wave of partnerships builds on an earlier model of museum expansion, often traced to the 1997 opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which demonstrated that cultural institutions could function as engines of urban development. The Guggenheim’s striking architecture, by Frank Gehry, helped transform the struggling Spanish port city. ‘The museum gave rise to its own theory of economic diversification and growth through magnetic cultural institutions: The Bilbao Effect keeps on going,’ says Mariët Westermann, CEO of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, who notes the Bilbao museum drew more than 1.3 million visitors last year.

Initiated by the Basque government in the 1990s, the Guggenheim Bilbao inspired cities to invest in cultural institutions to boost their standing as the world became more interconnected. It is just one example of how governments have long played a role in forging museum partnerships, using cultural institutions as instruments of diplomacy and national influence. The UK and France, too, have deployed their cultural institutions – like the Tate and the Louvre – as vehicles of soft power. ‘It is part of their national strategy for bilateral collaboration,’ says Dr. Charalampos Chaitas, an independent advisor to governments and cultural institutions on cultural policy.

Beyond diplomacy and cultural exchange, museum partnerships are increasingly driven by financial and operational considerations. Faced with declining public funding and declining audience numbers, museums are increasingly looking to collaborations as a new source of funding. ‘Museum partnerships are not only about sharing expertise and the operational aspects of running a museum. It’s also a type of licensing of a brand, which yields a new revenue stream,’ explains Chaitas. He notes that Guggenheim Bilbao’s original agreement included a USD 20 million fee for the brand name and expertise as part of a start-up package worth more than USD 220 million. The museum now pays the New York foundation EUR 1.9 million a year for the brand, exhibitions, and management. More recently, Centre Pompidou has been harnessing international expansion to support the EUR 463 million renovation of the Paris institution. For each overseas satellite, Centre Pompidou receives fees for use of its brand alongside services such as advisory support and museum expertise under varying terms. Centre Pompidou Hanwha, which opened in Seoul in June, reportedly involves a EUR 20 million four-year agreement covering collections, research, and curatorial expertise.

From recipients to co-authors

These recent partnerships reflect a changing dynamic between Western and non-Western institutions, particularly in Asia. ‘In the past, the focus was often on introducing the collections of Western museums to Asia. Today, however, Asian institutions, artists, and audiences are no longer simply recipients or consumers; they are active participants in shaping international art discourse,’ says Jade Keunhye Lim, the director of exhibitions at the South Korea-based Hanwha Foundation of Culture, which instigated the cooperation with Centre Pompidou. ‘Western institutions are prompted to reconsider how their collections are read within new cultural contexts, while Asian institutions are proposing new forms of collaboration.’

‘We have been receiving a growing number of collaboration inquiries from international institutions,’ says Kim Sung-hee, the director of the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA). ‘This interest reflects an uptick in global fascination with Korean culture, as well as the growing recognition of Korean artists within the international art world.’ In April, the museum signed a memorandum of understanding with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Rather than pursuing a brand licensing model, the institutions will focus on curatorial exchange, collection sharing, and scholarly research.

Regional partnerships within Asia are also increasing in number. Kim cites MMCA’s recent collaboration with the Yokohama Museum of Art, during which the Japanese museum saw an increase in visitors in their 20s, which she attributes to growing interest in Korean contemporary art among younger Japanese audiences. As of March 2026, M+ in Hong Kong has signed 15 collaborative agreements with regional museums in Japan and Korea, as well as with Centre Pompidou and MoMA – the latter marking the first ‘comprehensive collaboration’ between the New York museum and an Asian institution. M+ Museum Director Suhanya Raffel sees the partnerships as an opportunity to bring Hong Kong’s ‘distinct vantage point on the global and the contemporary’ into dialogue with institutions rooted in traditional Western centers of cultural power.

Beyond the blockbuster

While collaborations between major museums enrich the global art ecosystem, Nikos Papastergiadis, a professorial fellow and former Director of the Research Unit in Public Cultures at the University of Melbourne, says their shows tend to be ‘quite safe and already familiar.’ Other models are more nimble, however, and might represent both a counterpoint to current big museum collaborations and one of the possible futures for global art world partnering. He points to L’Internationale, a network formed in 2009 when museum directors from across Europe banded together around constituent-led art and shared knowledge. ‘In this case, smaller institutions led the way,’ he says, citing Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and SALT Galata in Istanbul. ‘The model may not be as sustainable, but what it produces in the short and medium term is probably far more adventurous and cutting-edge.’ L’Internationale expanded to include curators, writers, and artists from Barcelona, Ljubljana, Zagreb, and other participating cities.

Papastergiadis notes that similar ‘organic transnational community building’ has long existed in Southeast Asia and Latin America, even if formal museum partnerships between institutions in the Global South remain rare. There, biennials, curator-led networks, and artist-run venues, rather than museums, are establishing spaces and conditions for co-creating art events. Alya Sebti, the senior curator at Berlin-based Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), explains that this represents a different approach to the Western model of exporting blockbuster shows. She gives the example of the 36th Bienal de São Paulo, which she co-curated. Ahead of the biennial’s opening in Brazil, a series of global collaborations called ‘Invocations’ unfolded in art institutions in Morocco, Guadeloupe, Tanzania, and Japan as a way of decentralizing and also enriching the main exhibition. ‘It’s important to have a plurality of perspectives, not a single story,’ she says, describing each event as grounded in its location.

Chaitas notes that former colonial powers still influence South-South museum partnerships, but he believes this will soon change. ‘It depends on how quickly governments update their policies and operational frameworks to use their cultural heritage as a tool for partnership with countries that share similar challenges.’ Looking at the current landscape, he observes growing interest from governments and art professionals in exploring new forms of institutional collaboration in regions and countries like Africa, China, and India – and expects cooperation-driven momentum to build. ‘This is something that is coming, and nobody can stop it.’