top of page
Search


Hu Wensui Art Museum
The Hu Wensui Art Museum, located in Gucheng Park in Huangpu District, Shanghai, officially opened on February 24, 2021. The museum is housed in a historic building, the Qianye Guild Hall, which was originally built during the Qing dynasty's Guangxu era (1875–1908). Its founding stemmed from a 2019 donation by Hu Wensui's family to the Huangpu District government of nearly a thousand of his calligraphy works and manuscripts. Hu Wensui (July 24, 1918 – February 19, 1999), a na

Cathy Shen
5d3 min read


Shanghai Qingu Art Museum
The Shanghai Qingu Art Museum is in the Jiangshangqiao Cultural Park at 2888 Cao'an Highway, Jiading District. The main building is a classical Huizhou-style courtyard complex. It was built from traditional materials, including century-old wall bricks, reclaimed timber and old grey bricks. The new building opened in 2019, and since then the museum has made ceramics its specialty. It also shows calligraphy and painting, holds a porcelain collection, and runs classes in traditi

Cathy Shen
Oct 243 min read


Liu Haisu Art Museum (Branch)
The Liu Haisu Art Museum's only branch opened in 2009 at No. 1869 Tongchuan Road in Shanghai's Putuo District. The building covers more than 4,000 square meters, and over 1,500 of these are exhibition space. The branch is a designated venue on Shanghai's social-practice platform for the comprehensive evaluation of high school students. It is dedicated to researching and disseminating Liu Haisu's art and to fostering and promoting young artists in Shanghai. From September 23 t

Cathy Shen
Oct 183 min read


Dunhuang Contemporary Art Museum
The Dunhuang Contemporary Art Museum is located in Changyang Creative Valley in Shanghai’s Yangpu District and officially opened on November 10, 2024. Inspired by the form of sand dunes, the building features a flowing exterior reminiscent of yunjin brocade, an architectural gesture that echoes the visual language of Dunhuang. Inside, it houses a 1,500-square-meter open exhibition hall, along with a bookstore, café, and other visitor facilities. Converted from a former parkin

Cathy Shen
Oct 114 min read


Shanghai Special Art Exhibition Highlights (October 2026)
• CHANEL la Galerie du 19M SHANGHAI (Sino-French contemporary craftsmanship) Dates: Sep 25, 2026 – Nov 15, 2026 Venue: Museum of Art Pudong • Yang Xin Sculpture Art Exhibition: “Nameless” (contemporary sculpture) Dates: Sep 24, 2026 – Nov 15, 2026 Venue: Hall 8, Powerlong Museum • Li Baige Solo Exhibition (contemporary painting) Dates: Sep 27, 2026 – Nov 2, 2026 Venue: Hall 5, Powerlong Museum • Computing the Myriad Worlds (interdisciplinary art; special exhibition unit of th

Cathy Shen
Oct 93 min read


Nanjing Museum of the Six Dynasties
Located at 302 Changjiang Road in Nanjing’s Xuanwu District, the Museum of the Six Dynasties is a highly distinctive museum devoted to a single historical and cultural theme. It is China’s most comprehensive site museum for artifacts from the Six Dynasties period, and also the most systematic local museum dedicated to interpreting Six Dynasties culture. It officially opened to the public on August 11, 2014, and has a floor area of more than 23,000 square meters. In Chinese hi

Cathy Shen
Oct 44 min read


Yuz Museum
Yuz Museum is a non-profit contemporary art museum in Shanghai, founded in 2014 by the Indonesian Chinese entrepreneur and collector Budi Tek. The museum was originally located on the West Bund in Xuhui, in a former hangar converted from Longhua Airport, and relocated in May 2023 to Panlong Tiandi in Qingpu District. Blending the characteristics of traditional Jiangnan vernacular residences with modern design, the new museum is dedicated to exhibitions, collecting, and public

Cathy Shen
Sep 283 min read


Xianhe Art Museum, Songjiang, Shanghai
Located in the ancient town of Sijing in Shanghai’s Songjiang District, Xianhe Art Museum is a private art museum. Its main focus is the collection and display of artworks, while also engaging in the planning of cultural and artistic events, the design and development of art-related products, and various forms of research, exchange, and public outreach. Admission is free. The museum has two floors: the first includes a gallery space, an exhibition and hands-on experience area

Cathy Shen
Sep 253 min read


Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum
Shanghai Mingyuan Art Museum was established in March 2004 with investment from the Mingyuan Group. According to the 2024 Directory of Shanghai Art Museums, its current operating address is B1, Building A, 1199 Fuxing Middle Road, Xuhui District, and it follows a year-round free admission policy. When I visited today, I happened to catch the extended run of the contemporary art exhibition Sky Fragments—The City that Connects. Originally scheduled to close in August, the exhib

Cathy Shen
Sep 192 min read


Long Museum, Baoshan, Shanghai
Long Museum in Shanghai’s Baoshan District is a nonprofit private art museum funded and operated by a company under the Dongming Home Furnishings Group. It is set within a classical Jiangnan-style garden complex, a setting that already makes a visit worthwhile before one even steps inside. The main building encompasses 12,000 square meters over four floors: the first floor houses the exhibition galleries, while the second through fourth floors form the “Wenchang Pavilion.” Bo

Cathy Shen
Sep 132 min read


Shanghai Museum, People’s Square Branch
Located at 201 Renmin Avenue in Huangpu District, Shanghai Museum has a total exhibition area of 12,000 square meters and opened to the public in 1996. According to the museum’s official introduction, the first floor originally housed the Gallery of Ancient Chinese Bronzes, the Gallery of Ancient Chinese Sculpture, and a temporary exhibition hall; the second floor featured the Gallery of Ancient Chinese Ceramics, the Zande Lou Collection of Ceramics, and another exhibition ha

Cathy Shen
Sep 124 min read


From Ink Heritage to the Global Context: Teacher Luo Yanzi on Breakthroughs and Adherence in Modern and Contemporary Chinese Painting
Edited interview transcript 5 If, in tracing the path from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, we saw Chinese painting continually recalibrating its spiritual center in response to different historical moments, then in the modern and contemporary period the question becomes even more complex. On the one hand, Chinese painting continues its own internal lineage; on the other, it must confront the reality of meeting Western art head-on within a globalized context. Followi

Cathy Shen
Sep 1112 min read


From the “Four Monks” to Shitao: Professor Luo Yanzi on the Return of Individuality and the Deepening of Subjective Consciousness in Qing Painting
Edited Interview Transcript 4 If, in the previous section on the Ming, Professor Luo Yanzi and I discussed how Shen Zhou reassembled the traditions of the Song and Yuan and gave literati painting in the Ming a more rounded, more everyday, and more socially inclusive revival, then the next question arose naturally: by the Qing, why did literati painting once again assert “individuality” so forcefully? How did this shift take place? With that in mind, I invited Professor Luo to

Cathy Shen
Sep 1110 min read


From Yuan Spirituality to the Ming Revival: Professor Luo Yanzi on Shen Zhou and Ming Literati Painting
Edited Interview Transcript 3 I then asked Professor Luo Yanzi to focus on how Ming painting changed in relation to the Yuan, and on the pivotal role Shen Zhou played in that transition. As the discussion unfolded, a clear line of development gradually emerged: if Song landscape painting was primarily concerned with constructing the form, structure, and order of nature, and Yuan landscape turned instead toward the inner life of the literati, then Shen Zhou, in a certain sense

Cathy Shen
Sep 118 min read


Seeing the Spiritual Turn of Yuan-Dynasty Painting through Ni Zan: Professor Luo Yanzi on Why Literati Painting Came into Maturity in the Yuan
Edited Interview Transcript 2 In the previous section of my conversation with Professor Luo Yanzi on Fan Kuan and Song landscape painting, we discussed how the great achievement of Song painting rested on a profound apprehension of the order of nature. Whether in the monumental, stele-like composition of Northern Song landscape or in the spatial ideal of landscapes “fit to be wandered through and inhabited,” Song painting was consistently addressing one central question: how

Cathy Shen
Sep 119 min read


Seeing the Spirit of Song Landscape through Fan Kuan: An Interview on the “Seeing the Large through the Small” Approach in Chinese Art History
Edited Interview Transcript 1 This interview does not seek to turn Chinese art history into a dynastic survey unfolding in chronological order, nor is it meant to retreat into an overly sealed academic idiom. My point of departure is closer to a method of “seeing the large through the small”: moving from the Song dynasty to the modern period, selecting one representative painter from each era, and using his works, character, and fate as a way into the larger questions of how

Cathy Shen
Sep 117 min read


Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Founded in 2008 at the initiative of China Minsheng Bank, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum was the first non-profit art museum in mainland China to emerge from a financial institution. It is currently located at No. 48 Weihai Road in Shanghai’s Huangpu District. From the outside, the building looks like an ordinary office block. Yet when I visited, it was hosting Sculpting This Life of Mine: A Major Giacometti Exhibition. Although the ticket desk was on the fifth floor and the ga

Cathy Shen
Sep 53 min read


Shanghai Special Art Exhibition Highlights (Septemper 2026)
2026 Shanghai “Images on the Edge” Art Exhibition (painting, text, video, installation, and immersive spatial experiences) Dates: Aug 15-Dec 13, 2026 Venue: Modern Art Museum Shanghai “One Porcelain, One Color, One World: Special Exhibition of Ming and Qing Monochrome-Glazed Porcelain from the Shanghai Museum Collection” (ancient porcelain) Dates: Jul 18, 2026-Feb 14, 2027 Venue: Shanghai Jiushi Art Museum “Beauties of Shanghai: Lin Fengmian and Shanghai-School Paintings of E

Cathy Shen
Sep 23 min read


Nanjing Jiangning Imperial Silk Manufacturing Museum
If you are visiting museums in Nanjing, the Jiangning Imperial Silk Manufacturing Museum is a wonderful choice. It does not win you over with a single “star object” right at the entrance. Instead, it excels at unfolding the cultural memory of a city slowly and gracefully: one end tied to the historical legacy of the Qing-era Jiangning Weaving Office, the other to the interwoven cultural threads of Dream of the Red Chamber, Yunjin brocade, classical gardens, and paper art. The

Cathy Shen
Aug 2210 min read


Nanjing City Wall Museum
The Nanjing City Wall Museum is located at No. 1 Bianying, Laomendong, Qinhuai District, Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, right next to the Zhonghua Gate barbican. It is a first-class national museum with a total floor area of 12,000 square meters. As a museum dedicated to the history and culture of ancient Chinese city walls, and as an exhibition venue supporting the application for World Cultural Heritage status, it is the largest specialized city wall museum in China. The museum

Cathy Shen
Aug 84 min read

bottom of page