Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art Interprets the History of Modern Urban Culture, How "Magic City Shanghai" Dialogues with "Modern Paris" Shanghai | Film | Paris
Recently, the "Modern Paris 1914-1945: Architecture, Design, Film, Fashion" exhibition opened at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, featuring over 300 exhibits including architectural models, manuscripts, paintings, jewelry, photography, films, costumes, as well as digital spaces created by DS+R architectural firm, providing visitors with a mobile Paris urban feast. It is worth mentioning that this exhibition was planned 7 years ago, and the entire preparation time took three years. There are about 38 borrowers, including the visual works. If the audience wants to watch all the exhibition content, it will take about three days.
"Many viewers are curious why Shanghai should hold an exhibition about Paris? What is its relationship with us?" Huang Mi, the director of the exhibition department of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, unravels the mystery. "Modern Paris" is a sequel to the 2016 "Civic Shanghai: A Sample of Modern Urbanism" exhibition, and Shanghai in the 1920s and 1930s was once known as the "Paris of the East". "We had already discussed Shanghai's modernism at that time, and if we trace the origin of Shanghai's modernism, we naturally think of Paris." This exhibition takes Paris from 1914 to 1945 as an example to share with the audience the diversity of modernism and explore the important role of humanities and art in the historical transformation of cities. "I also hope to provide reference for the study of urban modernity in Shanghai.
Tracing the history of modern urban culture through contemporary curation methods
When it comes to landmarks in Paris, many people think of the Eiffel Tower. At the "Modern Paris" exhibition, you can learn about the story behind the Eiffel Tower.
This world-renowned tourist attraction was built by engineer Gustav Eiffel for the 1889 World Expo, but it was strongly opposed during its early design phase. For Paris at that time, it was like a "steel beast", even writer Maupassant wrote letters protesting its construction. However, the Eiffel Tower was still built. It is said that the Paris government signed a contract with Eiffel, with the government contributing 20% and him contributing 80%. In contrast, Eiffel can contract for ticket revenue for the next 20 years. Due to the great success of the Eiffel Tower after its completion, the cost was recovered in just one year. It is worth mentioning that the Eiffel Tower, like the area where the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art is located, is a temporary building for the World Expo. It was originally planned to be demolished in 20 years, but due to the outbreak of World War I, it was discovered that this steel reinforced tower could be used as a transmitting tower for receiving radio information, so it was preserved.
On a large projection screen of the exhibition, various postcards depicting the lighting of the Eiffel Tower can be seen at the 1925 Paris Decorative Arts Exhibition. More than a hundred years ago, the popular Art Deco in Shanghai began to spread to various parts of the world after the Decorative Arts Expo.
Due to the widespread use of electricity in the 1910s, cities became brightly lit at night, and people's economic and cultural consumption at night became enriched. Movies and news short films also flourished. In the exhibition hall on the first floor, there is a considerable number of projection screen matrices, where you can see historical images of people visiting, building, and climbing the Eiffel Tower at that time, their colorful nightlife, and even stage videos of song and dance stars at that time.
Huang Mi introduced that these images were borrowed from institutions such as the French Film Archive, with over 100 of them. Curators need to spend a lot of time reading all the content and selecting the necessary parts in paragraphs. "The rental cost is expensive, and the fees are calculated by seconds, so it needs to be very concise."
At that time, Paris was one of the world's industrial centers, and a 1939 Citroen car was transported from France in the exhibition hall. This well preserved cultural relic is the world's first front wheel drive car, which can still be driven today. It is the most expensive transportation item in the entire exhibition.
The series of exhibitions on architecture is the most academically thought-provoking part of the "Modern Paris" exhibition. Huang Mi revealed that the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art originally planned to hold a solo exhibition on the theme of modernist architect Le Corbusier. One of the curators of this exhibition, renowned architectural historian Jean Louis Cohen, was also an expert in studying Corbusier. During the preparation, they gradually discovered a larger theme. In the exhibition, you can still see many highlights about Corbusier, such as his most famous "Savoy Villa" model, which uses columns instead of load-bearing walls, and the ground floor is completely elevated, allowing cars to drive all the way to the living room entrance. Corbusier used a very radical stance to proclaim his architectural ideas, although in reality it was not very useful and began to leak shortly after living. However, many elements influenced the later architectural design, and now this building has become a well-known tourist checkpoint.
Corbusier was one of the earliest architects to do urban planning, and one of his bold ideas can be seen in the exhibition - to flatten all the right side of the Seine River and build glass skyscrapers, but ultimately it was not implemented due to being too radical. At that time, many architects had such bold ideas. Some wanted to design the exterior facade of a building as a scaffolding structure, with neon posters hanging all over it; Some people also want to build an airport over the center of Paris and have drawn detailed drawings. Although these ideas ultimately failed to be implemented, they also showed the extraordinary creativity and innovative ideas of the Parisian architects at that time.
The exhibition on fashion and clothing may be the most interesting for female audiences. In 1920, Parisian women liked to pack their cosmetics in small and unique makeup bags, known as "treasure boxes". The tassels underneath the treasure boxes also contained a lipstick. At that time, there were many treasure boxes designed in Chinese style, some of which even had Chinese characters printed on them, which was also the fashion of Paris at that time.
80 yuan to understand the modern password of Paris
There are many unexpected exhibits and spaces in "Modern Paris", such as the exhibition series on modern interior design, where you can see the original furniture of that time. It was transported from abroad to Shanghai, and some sofas and armchairs can be used for the audience to experience on site. If you are tired from visiting the exhibition, why not take a break.
What's even more astonishing is that the curation team actually built a house in its original state in the exhibition hall, hoping to make the audience perceive the "detachable house" at that time. Each wooden board and steel compass bracket are transported from abroad and then built on-site in the exhibition hall. "Experienced people can get together in 12 hours, and we spent two whole days together," Huang Mi said.
Out of over 300 exhibits, only one set of airplane models comes from the collection of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art. Zhang Dequn, the special assistant to the director of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, introduced that considering the high cost of renting airplane artifacts, he had to give up.
About 80% -90% of the exhibitions at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art are independently planned. The curators of the "Modern Paris" exhibition include Jean Louis Cohen, architect Pascal Mori, and fashion historian Catherine Olmer. They also invited Diller Scofidio+Renfro architectural firm to serve as exhibition designers, and He Jianping as graphic designer.
"The academic reserves of a team in a museum cannot be comprehensive, so we would choose to invite the most authoritative experts in the research field to help us with related exhibitions. However, if it weren't for the recognition of Shanghai and the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, they might not have come, and it would be difficult for us to borrow so many precious exhibits." Huang Mi still remembers that on the opening day of the exhibition, many well-known architects and designers came from other places to visit, and a chair from the "legendary E1027 residence" in the exhibition surprised many people, which was the information they could only see in educational books in the past.
"We hope to create an exhibition that allows visitors to stay for a day, and provide one-stop services for citizens and tourists with cultural and creative derivatives including decorations, brochures, catering, etc." Fang Ya, Deputy Secretary of the Party Branch of the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, introduced that the Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture and Tourism is striving to make "Come to Shanghai to See Art Exhibitions" an important brand for citizens and tourists to enjoy cultural and tourism services in Shanghai. Just like IPs such as "Architecture Readable" and "Shanghai style Urban Archaeology", the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art also hopes to leverage its original curatorial power to create a series of high-quality commercial exhibitions with international standards, becoming a must visit art IP for domestic and foreign tourists. Nowadays, the iconic "chimney" has attracted many citizens and tourists to check in and visit, and has been included in the first batch of "building readable" unified signage units.
The ticket for the "Modern Paris" exhibition is 80 yuan, and special services for students, the elderly, medical workers and other special groups are also available. The exhibition will continue until October 20th. Zhang Dequn registered on Xiaohongshu and searched for the exhibition names offered by the museum every day. One audience member said on Xiaohongshu that after watching the exhibition "Raymond de Badong: Modern Life" at the Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, he couldn't forget it. When he wanted to go for a second visit, he unfortunately found that the exhibition had already ended. Zhang Dequn replied, "Come and see Modern Paris!" The other party immediately replied, "Okay, arrange!"
When searching for the "Modern Paris" exhibition on Xiaohongshu, you can see a large number of check-in and recommendation information posted by the audience. Some viewers praised it as the most favorite and rich exhibition they have seen this year. She described that after watching the exhibition, she was "like a sponge full of water, taking some time to slowly digest.". Zhang Dequn specifically wrote "Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art" in his profile, and when he noticed that an audience recommended checking in, he gave a like, "I hope they can find that a staff member of Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art is silently giving them a thumbs up."
