Modern Art Museum Shanghai announces 2021 programme including a brand new sculpture garden and night museum

The Modern Art Museum Shanghai has revealed an exciting new programme for 2021, including the opening of a brand new Night Museum and Sculpture Garden, the premiere of an immersive Alice in Warholand installation and a line-up of cutting edge exhibitions such as a closeup look into four decades of design by Zaha Hadid Architects.

The latter show, ZHA Close Up – Work & Research, opening this summer from the 26^th June to the 15^th September, will be the first large-scale retrospective of its kind, offering a glimpse into the work and research of this acclaimed studio. It will take gallery visitors through 40 years of innovation, covering their research into pioneering design, building techniques and new materials. There will be a selection of sketches and drawings, project renders, photographs, architectural models and prototypes on display, as well as video projections of completed buildings and those still under construction. The exhibition will also break ground by giving visitors a window into unseen parts of the studio’s portfolio, encompassing a variety of Chinese projects, multidisciplinary research, experimental designs and even a carefully curated selection of furniture which has been created over the years in collaboration with other major brands as part of the Zaha Hadid Design collection.

This will be followed in October by an unmissable interactive experience featuring renowned Pop Artist Andy Warhol in conversation with Lewis Carroll’s beloved Children’s book Alice in Wonderland. MAM Shanghai director Shai Baitel came up with this imaginative idea after co-authoring an essay with preeminent children’s literature scholar Leonard Marcus and Eric Shiner, who is the world’s leading expert of Warhol. The fully curated narrative experience will treat viewers to an innovative new form of artistic theatricality, creating a multi-sensory 45-minute journey with a traditional gallery space. Audiences will be led through a series of rooms, taking them on an adventure, much like that of the eponymous Alice. 

In November, the museum will bring new life to its riverbank promenade with the launch of a new sculpture garden stretching across the entire kilomtre and a half of terrian. The garden will host a series of two-year installations with an ecological focus. A selection of diverse local and international exhibitors will be creating art from natural, recycled or recylable materials, and the main aim of the new space is to provide an education to visitors, inspiring them to ponder and rekindle their relationship with nature. The sculpture garden will be free to visit all year round, offering a transcendent and accessible experience which encourages visitors to see the value of art outside the walls of the gallery itself.

Then, as the year draws to a close in December, a Night Museum will light up this dreary winter month with an outdoor overnight program. This interdisciplinary project will creating a real-life canvas by projecting large-scale art onto the facde of the museum and its plazas. It was conceived during the Covid pandemic as a reosponse to the closing of public spaces, and seeks to reimagine the traditional gallery by thinking, quite literally, outside the box. Bespoke digital artworks will adorn the building, available to watch free of charge every night, each exhibition lasting for three to four months. This ingenius extension of the museum’s opening hours allows art lovers to feed their passion while instituions remain closed in the wake of the coronavirus. The first artists to be featured include artists include Dominic Harris, Michal Rovner and Maggie West. Given the museum’s location right at the centre of Shanghai’s cultural mile, right on the city’s waterfront, this will be an artistic statement for the ages, visible every night to thousands of residents.

MAM Shanghai artistic director Shai Baitel is extremely positive about the year ahead: “MAM Shanghai is excited to present an engaging, educational, and innovative programme in 2021 and beyond. It reflects my belief in making art ever more accessible, especially in times like these. I am continuously looking to combine art with immersive, experiential, educational and public programming, often involving a growing network of art institutions and other cultural partners. MAM strives to push boundaries of experience of and immersion into art. We certainly do so with the upcoming Zaha Hadid Architects and Alice in Warholand exhibitions, and we move beyond the indoor museum space to the outdoors with our new Night Museum concept with its free and accessible art projections and screenings. All in all, I look forward to assuring that MAM’s programme, under my artistic direction, will be relevant and current, addressing new ideas in all creative fields that excite our audience of all ages and backgrounds.”

The editorial unit

The Modern Art Museum Shanghai is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 6pm, with last admission at 5.30pm. For further information visit the gallery’s website here.