The Centre d’Art Rodin is privately funded by a board headed by Wu Jing, a French-Chinese private collector who opened the Museum of European Art in Hangzhou in eastern China in 2017.
The centre’s artistic director, Kong Xianhe, told the Post that the French museum chose Shanghai as the location for its first international outpost because of its cultural significance and vibrant art scene, as well as the potential of its economy and urban development.
Musée Rodin is the only national museum in France that is fully self-funded. Without disclosing the financial agreement behind the partnership, Kong says the two museums will work together to curate exhibitions in the Centre d’Art Rodin.
The French museum will especially support its Chinese branch in terms of research and curation.
Auguste Rodin, born in Paris in 1840, is widely regarded as the 19th century sculptor who first broke away from classical traditions and made figures that reflected ordinary, human suffering, love and physical vulnerability.
Approximately 50 of his sculptures will be on show in the opening exhibition at the Shanghai museum, called “Rodin: The Inheritance of Modern Sculpture”, including plaster versions of The Thinker and The Age of Bronze as well as bronze versions of The Kiss and The Walking Man (1900). The inaugural exhibition is slated to run for two years.
Around 30 other works by other artists, such as Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, who was Rodin’s teacher, and Aristide Maillol and Antoine Bourdelle, who were Rodin’s students, will also be on show.
The opening exhibition will also display Rodin’s collection of Chinese art – something not many people know about. The collection, which will be exhibited to the public for the first time, includes a Guanyin statue, terracotta fingers from the Tang dynasty, and porcelain wares from the Ming and Qing dynasties.
A standard ticket to the opening exhibition will cost 120 yuan (US$16.50 per person.
The Centre d’Art Rodin will be the latest addition to the cultural offerings in Pudong New Area of Shanghai. The waterfront area by the Huangpu river was the site of Expo 2010, and Centre d’Art Rodin is moving into the building put up to house the French Pavilion at the Expo.
French architect Jacques Ferrier designed the building, which has an atrium covering more than 1,100 square metres (11,800 sq ft).
Pudong New Area is the latest Shanghai district to see a sprouting of cultural ventures backed by the private sector. Hong Kong-based Artyzen Hospitality Group opened the New Bund 31 Performing Arts Center last year in nearby Qiantan.
The Expo site is on the opposite side of the Huangpu River from the West Bund cultural corridor, home to major private art museums such as the Long Museum and the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project. Recently a number of well-established galleries and museums there have been displaced because of the area’s redevelopment.
“The opening of Centre d’Art Rodin in Shanghai is an exceptional example of French and Chinese cultural exchange, aiming to feature Rodin’s artistic spirit and achievements, and underline the connection and mutual affinity between Rodin and China,” Kong said.
Centre d’Art Rodin, 1929 Shibo Avenue, Pudong New Area, Shanghai.