The Rise of Museums in Shanghai: A Look Back on a Decade of Transformation

L ast month, at the Long Museum West Bund, Yuan Yunsheng’s vibrant mural Water Sprinkling Festival – Hymn of Life was displayed as part of the largest retrospective to date of the artist’s career. Originally commissioned for the Beijing Capital International Airport, the work ignited a firestorm of controversy over its depiction of three bathing women when it was first unveiled in 1979. In more recent years, however, the painting has been embraced not just as a seminal work in China’s contemporary art movement but as a symbol of the country’s changing attitudes toward art and culture amid a new era of reform and opening up.

Yuan’s retrospective has been just one of many exhibitions to grace the halls of the Long Museum over the past 12 months. The sprawling 33,000-square-metre space has also shown the works of influential American painter Pat Steir, Japanese avant-garde figurehead Natsuyuki Nakanishi and pioneering Chinese female artist Liang Ying, among others. And that’s not even counting the permanent collection, which includes pieces by everyone from Ming Dynasty painter Wen Zhengming to contemporary favorite Yayoi Kusama. To cap off an eventful year, the museum is also set to unveil two special exhibitions – one curated by its director, Wang Wei, and the other by Iwona Blazwick – this month coinciding with Shanghai Art Week to celebrate the 10th anniversary (of its Pudong location) this December.

Up until a decade ago, it would have been unfathomable to find the works of such a wide array of artworks exhibited in Shanghai, let alone in a single museum. After all, Beijing had historically been the nation’s epicentre of art, while the bustling coastal metropolis had sculpted itself as a hub for commerce rather than for culture. But as Shanghai flourished economically, it became clear that it would also have to invest in its cultural capital to truly become a world city.

While the founding of the Shanghai Biennale in 1996 helped kick-start the financial centre’s transformation into an emerging cultural destination, the city still lacked a robust infrastructure of brick-and-mortar spaces that could give the public regular access to different styles of art. To address this issue, the municipal government in 2011 announced an ambitious five-year plan to make cultural development a core priority for the city.

Aside from building its own institutions, the government actively encouraged affluent collectors and investors to open galleries and museums as a way to share their acquisitions with a wider audience. The Long Museum, owned and operated by Wang Wei and her husband Liu Yiqian, is a prime example of the many private art institutions that flourished as a result. The museum’s first location in Pudong opened in 2012, and the government offered Liu and Wang a generous land discount to establish a second location two years later along the West Bund cultural corridor – an 8.4 km tract along the Huangpu River designated for cultural projects.

Other high-profile private museums that have opened as part of Shanghai’s culture boom include Yuz Museum, Tank Shanghai, Rockbund Art Museum, Fosun Foundation and the Shanghai Center of Photography, among others. Many exhibit Chinese art across different eras as well as eclectic mixes of international works, making them fittingly diverse for a city that boasts a rich immigrant tapestry as well as a long-held position at the nexus of the east and the west. Their predilection for modern and contemporary art also reflects the city’s openness to the new and experimental, especially when compared with the more conservative capital of Beijing. Such boldness has resulted in trailblazing shows, such as the Long Museum’s SHE, a 2016 exhibition that featured works from more than 100 female artists hailing from 13 countries and 10 centuries. And, of course, just like the glitzy, glamorous metropolis they call home, these museums also know how to splash out, whether with record-breaking acquisitions or exhibitions of some of the biggest names in art, including Andy Warhol, Olafur Eliasson, and Louise Bourgeois.

Despite the groundbreaking rise of museums in Shanghai in recent years, the city’s arts and culture scene is still in its nascent stages of development. The next phase of growth will bring new opportunities and challenges, as the city looks to further establish formal systems for the preservation, trading, and exhibition of art. Leading private institutions are already playing key roles in these areas, with places like the Long Museum investing heavily in education and academic research as ways to normalise and embed culture into the very fabric of society. Such efforts are crucial to cementing Shanghai’s status as a global capital for the arts. And if the last decade is anything to go by, this transformation is set to continue at an astonishing pace.