Two Museums to Open in Expo Park on October 1

Two new art museums will open to the public on October 1 at the Expo Park, featuring some of the works of art that the city’s other museums lack the space to exhibit, local officials said at a press conference Thursday.

Two new art museums will open to the public this October in the Expo Park.

Photo: Cai Xianmin/GT

The new museums will be housed in two of the pavilions left standing in the Expo Park in Pudong New Area, said Hu Jinjun, director of the Shanghai Municipal Culture, Radio Broadcasting, Film and Television Administration. Admission will be free.

The China Art Museum, Shanghai, will take residence in the China Pavilion and the Power Station of Art, a museum devoted to contemporary works, will open in the renovated Pavilion of the Future.

After 11 months of reconstruction, the China Art Museum, Shanghai, has 64,000 square meters of floor space and 27 exhibition halls, while the Power Station of Art has 15,000 square meters of display space and 12 exhibition halls, Hu said. They are two of the largest museums of their kind in Asia.

"As the home of Chinese modern art, Shanghai has collected millions of works of art over the last two centuries. There are more than 30,000 boutique works of art kept in the city’s public museums and universities, said Zong Min, deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.

Because the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai and Shanghai Art Museum have a total of only 6,800 square meters of display space, many art collection have ended up locked up at a warehouse, out of the public view, Zong said.

The China Art Museum, Shanghai, will focus its exhibitions on works of Chinese modern art, which were made over the period from the late Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) to 1980, according to a local government press release.

It will also show top works of art in cooperation with the world’s leading art museums. The Power Station of Art will focus more on works that were made after 1980.

"We will continue to buy or accept donated works of boutique art from both home and aboard, even though we already have more than 140,000 pieces in the China Art Museum, Shanghai," Hu said.

Hu expects the museums will receive 3 million visitors in their first year.