We've got Surrealism, scrolls and shipwrecks this month. Two are ace, one less so. Herewith a round-up of what's what at two of Shanghai's newest museums...

Electric Fields: Surrealism & Beyond @ Power Station of Art

Here’s hoping an exhibition of Surrealist art on loan from the Pompidou Center in Paris and currently on show at the Power Station of Art sets a precedent for the recently opened museum. It’s really good, completely free and definitely worth a visit. The show takes its name and starting point from André Breton and Philippe Soupault’s The Magnetic Fields, widely considered as the first Surrealist literary work. It was pretty radical at the time, and piqued the interest of the movement’s superstar artists — Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Yves Tanguy, et al. As you’d expect, they’re all here but it’s a bunch of younger and later artists who take center stage in the Shanghai show, picking up where Surrealism’s founding fathers left off. The exhibition is divided thusly: Collage; Night; Eros; Objects; Automatism; and Words & Image, each prefaced by those usual suspects of old. To that end, you’ve got René Magritte’s Querelle des Universaux (1928) set alongside Roy Lichenstein’s very visual Knock Knock joke; George Brassaï’s wonderfully romantic nighttime snaps of 1930s Paris next to a 1999 Shanghai performance piece by Mori Mariko; contemporary photographer Andreas Gurskey’s consumerist-tastic 99 Cent versus various early 20th century ready-mades from Marcel Duchamp... It’s a show full of surprises — Cai Guo Qiang’s spectacular fireworks make an appearance, weirdly accompanied by the tinkly soundtrack of René Clair’s 1925 sci-fi comedy Paris Qui Dort drifting in from an adjacent room — as well as one or two treats: teeny tiny 'exquisite corpse' works by Breton, Ernst and Jacqueline Lamba. What would these dons and doyennes of Surrealism make of it all, we wonder? The Shanghai show isn’t remotely of the hackneyed, seen-before ilk and totally worth a look-see. More on that here.

Through All Ages @ Long Museum

Adding to the ever-growing list of new museums to grace Shanghai, the Long Museum opened last month. The purpose-built space houses the massive private collection of billionaire couple Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, and right now they’re sharing four periods of art in a wider opener entitled Through All Ages. To the chagrin of downtowners like us, this place is really far away — about a 15 minute walk from the end of Line 7, to be precise — but for our money (50rmb admission, that is) it's worth it. Spanning three floors, the city’s newest museum opens strongly with New Style: a who’s who of Chinese contemporary art, all housed in an impressively massive gallery — think large-scale works by Mao Yan, Zhang Enli, Yie Minjun, etc. Impressive stuff. From there, things wind round to New Art History, a mish-mash of modern and contemporary pieces good for a stroll, but it’s upstairs where things get really interesting. Starting from the 1950s and meandering through 'til the '70s, Revolutionary Art Since the Yan’an Era comprises large-scale oil paintings, posters, sculpture and wood cut prints. Together, they chart Mao’s various campaigns from the Cultural Revolution, African-American national liberation and Great Leap Forward. English language explanatory texts are sketchy, but that's OK: all beatific smiles and harmony, the sanctioned artists of the time spin a political yarn steeped in what we now understand as glaringly obvious propaganda... That's not to say these works aren't impressive in their own right: full of zeal and romance, you kind of want to fall for their sheer hopefulness. The third and final floor is all traditional and ancient art. Lots of scrolls, mostly. Again, there's not really so much in the way of English explanations so unless you're especially hot on the subtle stylistic differences between Qing, Ming and Song, the section is less engaging than what's on offer elsewhere. Do make a beeline for the museum's most prized work: Sketches of Rare Birds by one Zhao Ji, aka 11th century Emperor Huizong.

Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition @ 408 Bocheng Lu

Last, and actually kind of least, Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition has arrived in Shanghai, setting up in the former Greece Expo pavilion. It's an awkward location: bulldozers and construction workers mill about surrounding sites and it's hardly the most hospitable of areas. Nonetheless, for what the exhibition organizers have put together, we concede that the empty shell of an Expo pavilion was probably a logical choice. Gone are whatever Greek goodies once described a nation; in their place, vast lighting rigs, replica rooms, overly loud sound systems and, of course, an assortment of Titanic paraphernalia. All in all, it feels a bit like walking onto a film set. The show comes to Shanghai courtesy of RMS Titanic, Inc, as part of a worldwide tour commemorating the centenary of the White Star Liner's sinking. They're the exclusive exhibitor of the ship's various recovered artifacts and have also conducted a bunch of research and recovery expeditions at the wreck site itself. What's on show here is just a fraction of the group's amassed objects, and, truth be told, perhaps not the most interesting of the bunch. This is a slick, polished exhibition and does a good job of telling the Titanic's tragedy from construction in Belfast, right through to the public inquiry in the wake of disaster. In terms of objects, there's a lot of rivets, some remarkably intact glassware and cutlery, as well as more poignant artifacts: a pince-nez, children's marbles and so on. As if actual stuff from the actual ship weren't enough, there's even a replica of that swooping staircase from Kate and Leo's 1997 blockbuster... There's also a woefully small section about the autonomous underwater and remote operated vehicles used in research and recovery, winding round to a small display of historical navigation technology and diving apparatus. In short, it's an entertaining enough exhibition, but at 100rmb a pop, pricey for what's actually on show. *** For a complete list of fine art exhibitions going on right now in Shanghai, click here.