Fashion Billionaire François Pinault Opening $170 Million Art Museum In Paris

Billionaire François Pinault made his fortune in the fashion industry, but he's also amassed an impressive art collection, and he's long been interested in opening a museum in Paris to show it off. Yahoo! reports that his attempts to do so go back to the year 2000, but now it's finally happening and his $170 million art museum has a firm opening date.

That will be in June of next year, when visitors to the re-purposed Bourse de commerce will be able to view around 5,000 pieces of contemporary art from artists like Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hearst, and many more. The museum will be designed by Japanese architect Tadao Ando, the same architect who designed Pinault's Palazzo Grassi and Punta della Dogana museums in Venice, Italy.

Once the museum opens, it will be the second art museum in Paris fully funded by a billionaire art collector, the first being Bernard Arnault's Louis Vuitton Foundation, which opened in 2014. And in addition to Pinault's own collection, the museum will also be designed to showcase new exhibitions and displays from across the art world, thanks to 3,000 square meters of modular space that can be adjusted for virtually any type of exhibit one can imagine, from the small, close quarters of intimate installations to massive sculptures and other large-scale works.