A futuristic wonderland of a museum, by Japanese digital art collective teamLab. Inside, it's a fantasy world spread across many rooms, with endlessly changing and interactive projections creating a disorienting trip akin to that bit in 2001: A Space Odyssey where... Read more
Opened in 2014, the Long Museum West Bund is the second of Chinese billionaire collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei's expanding empire. The architecture is stunning - right on the waterfront, it was designed by Liu Yichun of Atelier Deshaus. Inside is a veritable who's... Read more
Until 2025, Centre Pompidou is collaborating with the West Bund Group to establish the most significant artistic exchange between France and China to date. The exterior of the building, designed by David Chipperfield, is nothing compared to its Parisian original, but... Read more
The best part of the Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai (MOCA) is the prime location smack dab in a lovely green portion of People's Square. Sunlight and panoramic views pour in through the museum's floor to ceiling glass walls. International exhibitions are the... Read more
The PSA is an impressive but cumbersome space, a huge building likened by curator Qui Zhijie to London’s Tate Modern. The PSA may have similar hardware to that legendary institution but it doesn’t have the software — the staffing, budgets, etc — to match.... Read more
A vast art museum, housed in the former Chinese Expo pavilion over in Pudong. Works on display span modern and contemporary periods, and there's also a steady rotation of temporary exhibitions, including lots from abroad. Good to know: it's free to get in, but you... Read more
One of many art museums on the West Bund campus. Read more
Opened in 2018, this museum is housed on the 6th floor of Jardine Matheson Building on the bund, a six-story listed national heritage site at 27 Bund that has been standing for almost a century. Exhibitions hosted here usually revolve around the historical changes of... Read more
Opened in May 2014, YUZ Museum Shanghai is the second major private institution to grace the city's West Bund area. This one is the brainchild of Chinese-Indonesian collector, Budi Tek and will host rotating exhibitions sourced from his own massive collection of... Read more
A former coal storage facility known as the Lao Bai Du Coal Warehouse (老白渡煤仓), it was transformed by Atelier Deshaus (who also did the West Bund’s Long Museum) into a museum. It has retained many of its original structures, like a long, elevated channel that runs... Read more
Powerlong is a real estate company and this museum is the show-and-tell space for its chairman, Xu Jiankang. Xu is a high-profile rich AF art collector and this is his non-profit space. The 23,000 square meter museum is anchored by a stunning minimalist ramp that... Read more
Located in the tough-to-get-to Hongkou district, the Duolun museum is the first state-owned hub dedicated solely to modern art. Spiral staircases wind through the seven-story Bauhaus structure that collaborates with Asian museums to bring in the occasional big name.... Read more
Though not the most active of spaces in the city, the Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Institute occasionally throws up one or two gems, particularly in terms of international collaborations. Best to call ahead to check what's on. Read more
A sister site to Redtown's original Minsheng Art Museum, this one continues the bank-sponsored institution's remit: contemporary art from China and beyond. Opened in 2014, it's housed in the... Read more
Established in 2017 and dubbed Shanghai’s first 'night museum,' for its later opening hours, HOW is a 7,000sqm, 3-story building, adjacent to a five-star art hotel. It also... Read more
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
SmartShanghai.com is an independent media publication dedicated to honesty and editorial transparency. We are for Shanghai residents, written by a team of long-term, opinionated and knowledgeable writers and editors. We never give an opinion or recommendation that we wouldn’t also share with our own friends and family.
