This spring, LACMA announced a new multi-year partnership with East West Bank, the largest independent bank headquartered in Southern California. The new partnership will support exhibitions and educational programs at LACMA, and also encompasses a major gift to the Building LACMA campaign. This partnership extends East West Bank’s decade-long history of support for LACMA, including sponsoring the exhibitions The Allure of Matter: Material Art from China (2019) and Legacies of Exchange: Chinese Contemporary Art from the Yuz Foundation (2021–22).
In addition to LACMA, East West Bank has collaborated with numerous museums and arts organizations to help share world-class art with the widest audiences. LACMA CEO and Wallis Annenberg Director Michael Govan spoke with East West Bank Chairman and CEO Dominic Ng about the new partnership and East West Bank’s passion for fostering new connections and greater understanding through art.
Michael Govan: I’m so grateful that East West Bank is joining us as a partner at such an exciting time for LACMA. This gift will have an indelible impact on the museum for many years to come, and shows a deep commitment to the arts and art community. How does that fit into East West Bank’s broader mission?
Dominic Ng: Our mission—serving as a financial and cultural bridge—has remained the same for 50 years. East West Bank has always prided itself as being the bridge between the East and the West since our foundation 51 years ago. Whether connecting people and businesses within our communities or across the Pacific, we believe that art can be a cultural bridge to help nurture understanding and build a more inclusive future for all.
MG: That belief is embodied beautifully by the East West Bank Collection, which brings together major works by contemporary Chinese artists and works by artists from many other cultural backgrounds.
DN: We created the collection to tap into art’s ability to inspire, educate, and connect people. Our aim is to amplify voices from a broad range of cultures that mirror the communities served by East West Bank. The goal of the East West Bank Collection is to provide more people in Los Angeles with greater exposure to, and understanding of, contemporary Asian art. Whenever there is an opportunity to support an art exhibition that will help give exposure to East Asian art, East West Bank will work to step up to support it.
MG: We also strive to reflect the communities we serve at LACMA, and in the last decade we’ve built a strong program of Chinese art through exhibitions, international partnerships, and acquisitions. You’ve personally stepped up in many ways to help make those efforts a success, which I truly appreciate—whether offering strategic insight as we developed partnerships in Asia or generously supporting LACMA’s acquisition of its first work by the artist Zeng Fanzhi.
DN: Chinese contemporary art has emerged as one of the most compelling areas of the global art landscape. The addition of a piece by Zeng Fanzhi—who is considered by many to be China’s greatest living artist—exemplifies your vision to showcase a diversity of artistic voices. East West Bank was proud to support LACMA’s exhibition of new work by Zeng Fanzhi in Venice this year, as well, which continued this ongoing cultural exchange between East and West.
MG: That kind of cross-cultural pollination is what inspired the design of our new building for the collection, the David Geffen Galleries. We’re honored for East West Bank to be a part of this historic project and for its incredible gift to the people of Los Angeles.
DN: East West Bank and LACMA share a long-standing commitment to do whatever we can to increase visibility for traditionally underrepresented artists—East Asian, Asian American, women, African American, Latino, and others.
We need to keep working together to proactively showcase these diverse talents and their groundbreaking art. So we want to provide LACMA with funding to increase these kinds of diverse exhibitions for the next five, 10, 15 years and beyond.
Another critical component of our partnership is education to foster greater cultural understanding and appreciation between the East and West. L.A. is a cosmopolitan city with a rich, diverse history, which makes it the perfect space—and LACMA the ideal partner—to build bridges to the future that are rooted in an already powerful foundation.
This conversation was first published in the winter 2024 issue of Insider.