Upon arrival in the new XI Station of Jinan, the city with 5 million and a half inhabitants in the Shandong region, 400 km from Beijing, was immediately surprised by the vast square that receives visitors: at the center the theater, all around the curious modeled buildings as sculptures, one rears red written 'Art City'.

It is one of 20,000 square meters divided over three floors, of which 13,000 for exposure, intended to Western art and African art. A cultural center with a mixed formula, midway between the museum and art gallery, the Chinese government has given to its creator and director, Piedmontese Vincenzo Sanfo. There is talk of a cost of tens of millions of dollars, they will also participate in 12 major Chinese banks.

Art City was inaugurated last night with a phantasmagorical event between light, dance and a concert of Al Bano and Piedmont pianist Massimiliano Genot, attended by 1500 guests, an event conceived also to celebrate 70 years of Sanfo, which long years organizes exhibitions, events, trade between Italy and China, and that once he took care of Bompiani art catalogs.

Designed Turin nell'allestimentodall'architetto Piero Carcerano, the center is home to one of the sliding panels 700 works, of which 200 will be for sale and in rotation every year, the choice is wide: they are paintings, sculptures, installations, antiques, furniture, vases, chairs , dishes, like say from Deruta majolica and porcelain of 1500 or the shower tureens' 700 French boudoir 1700 by Leonardeschi to Picasso, Dali, up to Bartolini and Sandro Chia, in addition to the sagacious table Fornasetti in 1950, decorated musical instruments, there is also a festival of Italian painting lesser known late '800/1' 900; The works are on loan from galleries, museums, private collectors for the next year, while the perennial Museum is under construction, a special commission will choose 'the next few specimens. For now they proudly displayed paintings of the Venetian school, Guardi, Tiepolo, followed Bonnard, 80 works by Warhol, Miro, Picasso, with an anthology for women, parade Sonia Delaunay, Dora Maar, Francoise Gilot, the Bourgeois.

It is not everything, it is a fixed restoration laboratory, with specialists as well as Pompeii. It is also 'in the making a database with all the international archives. On the ground floor there is a bookshop offering local crafts is one related to foreign institutions, for now joined the Guggenheim and the Reunion des Mus'eses de France. Inside they are working 160 people, including conservatives, administrators, custodians, ushers. The works proposed by lenders, however, are not subject to customs.

"It is an act of trust of the Chinese government towards Italy and the West - explains Vincenzo Sanfo - I thought of as a great repository of art, a cultural venue where China will find the greatest amount of Western art, a bridge between countries, a concentration of stable jobs that will be of European art, but also in the Americas and Africa; I chose the title "1416 -2016", that is, 600 years of Western art from the Renaissance to the present day, from Marco Polo to today, to emphasize the ties between our country and China, it was my dream for many years, now It came true. "

A mixed public-private formula, basically a brand new site that aims to growing Chinese collectors of the XXI century, Vincenzo Sanfo compares it to a newborn baby, maybe a little 'awkward, but destined to grow and develop in a short time, like everything else in China and how they wished the many directors intervened museums, including Zhang Zikang of the National Museum in Beijing and the other in charge of public institutions. All among the print and television applause and waiting collectors that the banks have promised to feed quickly. Maybe this is the global collectors of our time, maybe able to attract the huge Chinese capital in favor of the wonderful, but the suffering of the many Italian museums and galleries in trouble.