Paris’ Pompidou Center, prides itself on having the world’s second largest collection of modern art, has sealed a partnership deal with West Bund Group to open a new gallery in Shanghai, after 10 years of long discussion. The new gallery is on schedule to be launched in 2019, at the earliest.

The new gallery, officially named as Centre Pompidou Shanghai (West Bund), will situate inside the West Bund Art Museum. The gallery will hold over 20 exhibitions and activities in the first five years, and “an importance place” will be given to contemporary Chinese art. The 25,000 square metre West Bund Art Museum has started construction in the end of 2016 by British architect David Chipperfield, expected to be completed at the end of 2018.

The Pompidou Center houses over 120,000 artworks, in which the scale of modern art collection comes only after the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York. The Pompidou Center has an ambitious plan for its expansion. With two branches already launched in Metz in France and Malaga in Spain, it plans to open branches in Belgium and South Korea. It is encouraging to see Centre Pompidou’s project in Shanghai has finally borne fruit after 10 years of negotiation with the Chinese counterpart.