Source: The Art Newspaper

French curator Jérôme Sans is expected to be announced as the new artistic director of the Ullens Center of Contemporary Art (UCCA) in Beijing at a press conference in Paris on Tuesday. Speaking to The Art Newspaper last month, Guy Ullens, the Belgian foodstuffs baron who has entirely funded UCCA, said that Jérôme Sans had been selected as the new director and that an announcement would be made as soon as the appropriate Chinese authorities had approved the appointment.

If all goes according to plan, Mr Sans will replace UCCA’s current artistic director, Fei Dawei, the Chinese art critic, who is to step down from operational matters and take on a research-based role. Dawei curated the museum’s inaugural show “‘85 New Wave: the Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art” which received mostly positive reviews in the international press but divided opinion in Beijing.

The UCCA press office downplayed the staffing changes, saying that Dawei’s original remit was only ever to be “instrumental in setting up the centre as a museum.”

However when Dawei was presented to the press at the opening of the museum last November he was described as UCCA’s full-time, long-term artistic director. Mr Dawei could not be reached for comment, however, sources in Beijing say that Mr Dawei’s disagreements with his colleagues are believed to be behind his change in role.

Jérôme Sans is a distinguished figure in the contemporary art world but his appointment will leave UCCA open to criticism that there are no senior Chinese members of staff at the institution (deputy director Colin Chinnery is half British).

Born in 1960, Mr Sans has worked for the Milwaukee Institute of Visual Arts and helped establish the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2002. Most recently, he served as Programme Director at the Baltic arts centre in Gateshead, England, but stepped down last July after just 14 months in the role.