The Yili Art Foundation is dedicated to establishing and preserving the world’s foremost collection of visual art. The Foundation manifests this commitment by creating, maintaining, and documenting a permanent collection that promotes awareness of the vitality, complexity, and importance of visual art; by presenting exhibitions to showcase the collection and the artists it represents; and by supporting art education and scholarship.

To achieve its goals the Foundation is guided by the following five principles:

1. Visual art provides a means to examine and understand the tapestry of our social fabric.
2. It is essential to affirm the importance of visual art and encourage individuals to create it.
3. Visual art transcends national boundaries and involves all forms of visual expression including, but not limited to, painting, photography, sculpture, drawing, prints, illustrated books, and architecture and design as well as new forms yet to be developed or understood that reflect and explore the artistic issues of the era.
4. Visual expression is open-ended argument that can be explored through exhibitions, installations, and educational programs.
5. To remain at the forefront of its field, the Foundation must have an outstanding professional staff and must periodically reevaluate itself, responding to new ideas and initiatives with insight, imagination and intelligence. This process of reevaluation is mandated by the Foundation’s tradition which encourages openness, inclusion, diversity, and a willingness to evolve.

In sum, the Foundation seeks to create a dialogue between the established and the experimental, as well as the past, the present, and the future in an environment that is responsive to the social, intellectual, and creative issues associated with the creation and preservation of visual art. The ultimate purpose of the Foundation declared at its founding is to acquire the most compelling works of visual art and present them in a manner that promotes interaction with and respect for all people.