2024-08-07 07:14:43
A private museum called the Centre d’Art Rodin is opening in Shanghai after eight years of preparation. The event comes in the year when the two countries – France and China – celebrate 60 years of diplomatic relations.
As reported by Day.Az, citing foreign media, the new institution will be privately financed by a council headed by French-Chinese art collector Wu Jing. The Shanghai branch will be based in the French pavilion built for Expo 2010.
The director of the Musée Rodin in Paris, Amélie Cimiez, signed the agreement with Wu Jing in April 2023 and, as she told Le Monde, “It is not a subsidiary, but a private centre that will manage it and that is independent of [парижского] museum”.
The Shanghai branch will be led by artistic director Kong Xianghe and will have research and curatorial support from the French institution, with whom it will collaborate on exhibition programming, and told the Post that the French museum chose Shanghai as the location for its first international branch because of its cultural significance and vibrant arts scene, as well as its economic and urban development potential.
“The opening of the Rodin Art Center in Shanghai is an exceptional example of French-Chinese cultural exchange, which aims to showcase Rodin’s artistic spirit and achievements, and highlight the connection and mutual affinity between Rodin and China,” Kong Xianghe said.
Born in Paris in 1840, Auguste Rodin is widely known as the 19th-century sculptor who was the first to break with classical traditions and create figures that reflect ordinary human suffering, love, and physical vulnerability.
The Centre d’Art Rodin will present around fifty sculptures by Rodin at the opening, entitled “Rodin: The Legacy of Contemporary Sculpture.” The exhibition will run for two years. Among the works will be plaster versions of “The Thinker” from 1904 and “The Age of Bronze” from 1877, as well as bronze versions of “The Kiss” from 1882 and “The Walking Man” from 1907. Also on display will be around thirty works by Rodin’s students Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol, as well as Rodin’s teacher Albert-Ernest Carriere-Belleuse. The exhibition will conclude with a collection of Rodin’s Chinese art, never before shown publicly. Among the treasures will be a statuette of Guanyin, terracotta figures from the Tang Dynasty, and porcelain from the Ming and Qing Dynasties.
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