TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - One of Indonesian property developers AKR Land is set to build South East Asia’s largest art museum in West Gallery, West Jakarta. The plan on the building of the ’Modern and Contemporary Art Museum in Nusantara (MaCAN)’ was revealed by the Managing Director of AKR Land Widijanto on Wednesday, November 19, 2014, at West Gallery, Kebon Jeruk, West Jakarta.

According to Widiyanto, the museum will be dedicated to Indonesian artists. He believes that Indonesia is rich of culture and artistic values. There are also many Indonesian artists whose work has been exhibited both locally and internationally.

"Unfortunately the place to exhibit the works of Indonesian artists are still limited, therefore more artists exhibiting their work abroad. Therefore, we want to accommodate exhibition of local at this museum," he said.

"We will set up a foundation that will select the reliable and talented artists to market their works in the international community," said Widijanto.

This museum will be the third largest after the ones in Japan (Mori Corporate) and South Korea (Samsung). The museum construction, designed by specialists from the United Kingdom, is estimated to be completed by 2017.

One of the paintings owned by the museum is the collection of Mark Rothko, Latvian-born artist who died in 1970. He was a descendant of Russian Jewish who settled in the United States. Mark’s painting had once broke the record of the most expensive auctioned painting with the price hit US$850 billion.

EVIETA FADJAR