Shanghai Museum to host a dozen major exhibitions

Wang Jie|2025-01-07

Ye Chenliang

Twelve new exhibitions are on Shanghai Museum's list this year.

The highlights at the People's Square institution will start with an exhibition titled "Year of the Snake – The Annual Spring Festival Exhibition" running from January 14 to March 2.

In Chinese culture, the snake is known as the "little dragon," which is also one of the original symbols of the dragon totems. The exhibition will contain 13 groups of Chinese and foreign cultural relics from Yunnan Lijiashan Bronze Museum, Hubei Provincial Museum and the museum's own collection. The exhibition will give visitors an insight into the snake legend in Chinese history.

Another exhibition shows how China was one of the first countries to use lacquer.

To showcase Chinese lacquer culture, especially precious Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1271-1368) heirlooms, the museum and the National Museum of Tokyo are to co-host an exhibition in the fall, with nearly 200 pieces of Chinese lacquerware from a number of renowned collections in Japan, mainly the National Museum of Tokyo.

Another highlight of the year at Shanghai Museum is an exhibition of Chinese cheongsams from 1912 to 1949 collected by Jeff Chang and Patricia Pei, the sister of I.M. Pei, the renowned Chinese-American architect. The exhibition will cover a century of modern life and how cheongsams became representative of Chinese women's clothing around the globe.

Shanghai Museum announces a list of 12 new exhibitions for 2025.

"Impression Party – the collection of the impressionistic masterpieces from Pola Art Museum" is the undoubted highlight at Shanghai Museum's east branch.

From January 22 to April 21, the branch will host the Japanese art museum's largest overseas exhibition with works from artists that include Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir and Picasso.

Also at the east branch will be "The Special Exhibition on the Ancient Civilization of the Hongshan Culture." Hongshan culture, a Neolithic archaeological culture of the Liaohe River Basin, is considered one of the most important sources of Chinese civilization.

Abroad, in an exchange program between Shanghai Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, "Chinese Bronzes from Song, Yuan, Ming Dynasties" will run at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from February 28 to September 28.

This exhibition will focus on the treasures of Chinese bronzes during the period, together with the lacquer, ceramics and jade of the time.

The 200 exhibits are on loan from the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, the Senechal Museum in France, the Forbidden City Museum, Shanghai Museum, the Liaoning Provincial Museum, and other major institutions.

Shanghai Museum (People's Square)