A piece of France at the West Bund

New museum promotes Sino-French cultural ties and brings works by renowned Western artists to Shanghai's vibrant art scene, Zhang Kun reports.

The West Bund Museum, the latest addition to Shanghai's stretch of museums along the Huangpu River in Xuhui district, officially opened on Nov 8.

Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, the West Bund Museum measures 25,000 square meters and took three years to build.

On Nov 5, French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron attended the opening of the Centre Pompidoux West Bund Museum Project, a high-level cultural exchange between China and France that goes on from this year to 2024.

In the five years, Centre Pompidou will host three semi-permanent exhibitions, each lasting at least 18 months, at the West Bund Museum. There will also be about 10 feature exhibitions taking place. Meanwhile, Centre Pompidou in Paris will host three exhibitions on China's contemporary art.

Centre Pompidou is recognized as one of the most prominent museums of modern and contemporary art in the world. In the past years, the museum has expanded its exhibitions to Malaga, Spain, and Brussels, Belgium. Shanghai represents the museum's first project in Asia.

Serge Lasvignes, chairman of Centre Pompidou, says the French museum had for years been searching for a partner to bring its exhibitions to China. It eventually settled on the West Bund Museum as both establishments shared the same objectives.

Xuhui district authorities had in 2012 started developing the West Bund area, which was previously home to a shipyard, airport and industrial facilities. The plan was to transform the waterfront area into a "cultural port" and a center for high-tech industries such as artificial intelligence. A series of museums and art spaces, such as the Long Museum, Yuz Museum and Tank Shanghai, have since sprouted up. Next year, four new theaters will also be launched in the West Bund region.

"We have constantly been thinking about how we want to develop the area," says Chen Anda, executive director of the West Bund Museum. "We want to build institutions that belong to the people who live here, and host events that they can participate in. Centre Pompidou was the most outstanding example in this field."

The project will not only consist of exhibitions but also cultural exchanges in the form of events and initiatives, adds Chen.

"We are actively exploring a new model of operation for public institutions in China and learning how to better serve the public. I believe there is a lot we can learn from our colleagues at Centre Pompidou," he says.

Named after the former French president Georges Pompidou, the French museum was built in the 1970s and inaugurated in 1977 as a multidisciplinary cultural center. The center houses the Public Information Library, Musee National d'Art Moderne, the largest museum for modern and contemporary art in Europe, as well as the Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music, a center for music and acoustic research.

For the opening exhibition at the West Bund Museum, more than 100 major art pieces from the MNAM's vast collection of about 100,000 works were presented.

Titled The Shape of Time - Highlights of the Centre Pompidou Collection Vol I, the exhibition "traverses both the 20th and 21st centuries as an introduction to the identity of the Pompidou collection," according to Bernard Blistene, head of MNAM.

While most of the artworks are from Europe, the exhibition also features a number of Chinese artists such as Zhang Huan, Cai Guoqiang and Chinese French painter Zao Wou-Ki.

Cai's installation at the exhibition is a plane made from recycled cables that hangs mid-air in the exhibition hall. Visitors will find knives, scissors and other sharp objects, all of which were confiscated at the Sao Paulo airport because they were deemed hazardous to flight safety, piercing the body of the plane.

Marcelle Lista, the curator of the exhibition, described the installation as a metaphor for the globalized world that addresses the dangers and complications of security inspections in international flights.

Another exhibition that is currently taking place is Observations - Highlights of the Centre Pompidou New Media Collection. Presenting 16 key works by 15 artists, the exhibition focuses on the development of new media art in a 900-square-meter space. The new media collection of Centre Pompidou, which was established in the mid-1970s before the building was launched in 1977, comprises about 3,000 works spanning videos, audiovisual installations, sound recordings and works involving interactive digital technology.

The West Bund Museum features a sound-proof dark room where audio artworks from the Centre Pompidou collection are presented every day. There is also a cinema space for the projection of videos and films that can easily be adapted into a conference and lecture hall.

On the same floor is the Creativity Gallery, a zone designed by Freaks Architecture firm that features three areas: playground, workshop and studio. The playground is an interactive space catering to children under the age of 6 and their caretakers. Every year, the Centre Pompidou will invite two contemporary artists to create artworks that children can play in. The first project featured there is Gravity by Chinese artist Shen Yuan which consists of large objects made of cloth, wool and other soft materials.

The museum opening and the Pompidou exhibitions were among many other art events that were taking place during the week. From Nov 7 to 10, The West Bund Art and Design Fair took place, drawing more than 100 galleries and art institutions from different countries.

On Oct 29, the Shanghai International Artwork Trade Center, which aims to facilitate the city's transformation into a global art trading center, celebrated its opening. The city named November as the first "art trading month" in Shanghai, aiming to "bring together the best artistic resources from all over the world". According to Zhou Dawei, founder of the Art021 fair which took place at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre from Nov 7 to 10, more than 100 exhibitions, art fairs and other events will take place in Shanghai this month.

He says Shanghai will introduce new technologies involving big data to help make international art trading more convenient.

Contact the writer at zhangkun@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Global 11/15/2019 page16)