POWER STATION OF ART
As well as being the first state museum dedicated to contemporary art in mainland China, the Power Station of Art is also home to the Shanghai Biennale. The building was formerly the Nanshi power plant, built in 1985, and then became the Pavilion of the Future in 2010 during the Shanghai World Expo. Following a renewal and expansion project, the PSA officially opened its doors on 1 October 2012 as a public platform that promotes culture and art.
Located on the left bank of the Huangpu River, the PSA occupies an area of 42 thousand square meters and can host exhibition sections that reach 15 thousand square meters. The renovation project, which cost about sixty-four million dollars, wanted to keep the vast spaces of the previous building and its industrial features with the addition of contemporary elements. The aim of the museum is to break down the barrier that separates the exhibition space from the space for “free time” by creating a profound relationship between man and art. In addition, the visit breaks the traditional single-track system to create many possibilities for artistic exploration.
Not having permanent collections the museum hosts temporary Chinese and international exhibitions. The first exhibition organized for the inauguration of the museum in 2012 presented more than 100 pieces from the Parisian Center Pompidou gallery entitled “Portrait of the Times”, which focuses on the surrealist avant-garde. The title of the exhibition was inspired by the first Surrealist collaboration in 1919 by Andre Breton and Philippe Souhault, “Magnetic Fields”. The works, from Renè Magritte to Ed Ruscha, included drawings, sculptures, installations, videos, photographs, prototype constructions and drafts that helped to examine the poetic character of surrealism. This event was of paramount importance as it constituted the first collaboration between a Chinese museum and the Pompidou.
Gong Yan (1977-), from 2013 director of the PSA, graduated from the Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, in Paris. In 2005, she founded the “O Art Center” focusing on unstable multimedia art and the city’s research by providing a dynamic platform for young talents and curators. Curator and artist, her works have been exhibited at the Shanghai Biennial in 2002 and 2006 and she is also at the helm of the influential Chinese magazine “Art World”. Her mission is to look to the future but at the same time to understand and incorporate the past of the city which is a unique trajectory that reaches the present day.
“I wish the Power Station was not just a box to be filled with this or that exhibition, but a creative and dynamic container, open to different experiments. And I would like visitors to be not just a distant and silent audience » (Gong Yan)
Before the opening of the Power Station, the Shanghai Biennials were held in the rooms of the Shanghai Art Museum. Since its opening in 2012, the PSA has already hosted three editions of the Biennale, the ninth, the tenth and the eleventh. The tenth organized in 2014 and entitled “Social Factory”, questioned what characterizes the production of the social and on how the “social facts” are constituted starting from the year 1978, a turning point in the modernization of China. According to Chris Dercon, director of the Tate Modern in London, he represented an “epochal turning point” for contemporary art in China.
The twelfth Biennale will be inaugurated on 10 November 2018 with the title “Proregress: Art in an Age of Historical Ambivalence” whose works will try to sensitize the public about the contradictions that characterize our time.
The Power Station often resorts to private sponsorships like most contemporary Chinese museums: thanks to them it has set up important exhibitions such as the personal exhibition of Cai Guo-Qiang named “The Ninth Wave”, in 2014, and, in 2012, the already mentioned “Electric Fields: Surrealism and Beyond.” The exhibitions that are set up touch different fields of contemporary art such as architecture, photography, performances, graphic design, product design and bio art.
VISIT
Address: 200 Huayuangang Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai
Hours: 11:00 – 19:00 from Tuesday to Sunday, closed on Mondays; open on all national holidays. Last admission at 18:00.
Admission is free except for special exhibitions.
CONTACTS
Telephone: 021-31108550
Website: http://www.powerstationofart.com/en/
E-mail: info@powerstationofart.com
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