20 incredible art museums and galleries in Shanghai

Power Station of Art

You’ll need to set aside at least a few hours to work your way through this humongous former power plant-turned-contemporary art museum (China’s first state run) that hosts some of the city’s highest profile art events. It’s been home to the Shanghai Biennale since 2012 and past exhibitions have shown works by Andy Warhol, Cai Guo-Qiang, Niki de Saint Phalle, Yves Klein and many more. Current exhibitions include illustrious creative studio M/M Paris' sprawling show M/Made in Shanghai and Jilin-born, Shanghai-based artist Zhang Enli's A Room That Can Move. 

Fosun Foundation Shanghai

Located in the sleek Bund Finance Center (instantly recognisable for its façade of bronze-coloured pipes that move with music), Fosun Foundation pulls in big-name exhibitions from the international contemporary art world, including the likes of Alex Katz, Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman and Julian Opie.

Rockbund Art Museum

Currently closed for renovations and due to reopen this year, Rockbund Art
Museum (RAM) has gained a name for itself for all things quirky since it first opened in 2010. Situated in the historic Royal Asiatic Society building at the north end of The Bund, RAM regularly exhibits works from some of China’s biggest contemporary artists (Cai Guo-Qiang, Lin Tianmiao, Song Dong, the list goes on). The building retains the minimalist, Art Deco style of its original 1930s design and is itself a piece of art worth a visit.

Shanghai Center of Photography

A labyrinth of small rooms each dedicated to nothing but photography, SCoP has become a hub for citydwellers who believe photography is so much more than taking selfies. Founded by Liu Heung Shing in 2015 and co-directed by Karen Smith, the impressive museum presents four exhibitions a year, hosting some of the art world’s classic photographic works by talented photographers from China and abroad. 

Yuz Museum

From Random International’s famous Rain Room back in 2015 to Alberto Giacometti's sublime retrospective to Gucci and Maurizio Cattelan’s collab show The Artist is Present, Yuz Museum has dedicated its 9,000sqm space (the museum is set inside an old aircraft hangar in the West Bund art area) to some of Shanghai’s most impressive exhibitions since it opened back in 2014.

Long Museum West Bund

Founded by billionaire collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei in 2012, this private art museum currently has two locations in Shanghai (West Bund and Pudong) with a third in Chongqing. Between ancient and contemporary Chinese art exhibitions – mostly coming from the couple’s enormous private collection – to high-profile international shows, these halls don’t disappoint. Plus, admission is free on the first day of the month. The Pudong location is currently closed. 

island6

Whimsical and quirky, this M50 studio and gallery exhibits the multimedia works of avant-garde Shanghai-based art collective island6 (Liu Dao). Made up of around 20 painters, sculptors, photographers, technicians and more, the collective explores the future of Asia – with a particular focus on the role of technology – via interactive works created using a mix of traditional and contemporary mediums: LED art, video, paper cutting, oil painting, photography and more.

Art+ Shanghai Gallery

Overlooking the serene Suzhou Creek and only a short walking distance from The Bund, Art+ Shanghai Gallery represents a mix of must-see established and emerging contemporary Chinese artists across different art forms. Think brilliant names like Ye Hongxing, Huang Yulong and artist collective Tamen.

Galerie Dumonteil

Nestled in the heart of Old Xuhui, the small-but-mighty Shanghai outpost of the Paris-founded gallery is the go-to place in the city to get your figurative sculpture fix with works by artists from across China and Europe.

Perrotin Gallery

The Shanghai branch of the chic international gallery is tucked away on the top floor of the historic Amber Building – a former warehouse of the Central Bank of China in the mid-20th century. Living up to the gallery’s mission of discovering and representing rising stars, the spacious Shanghai location presents group and solo exhibitions by mainly contemporary artists like JR, Takashi Murakami, Mark Ryden and Ni Youyu.

BANK Mabsociety

Collaborating with artists, galleries and collectors from all over the world on a programme that sets out to shock and provoke, this contemporary Anfu Lu gallery and home to MABSOCIETY engages with international issues that spark conversation.

Chronus Art Center

Chronus Art Center has been ploughing its own artistic furrow since 2013. Set inside M50, and founded by entrepreneur Dillion Zhang, curator Li Zhenhua and pioneer in new media art Hu Jieming, this is where art and technology synergise. Past exhibitions deal with cryptocurrency, WeChat and computers just to name a few. 

Prada Rong Zhai

Rong Zhai is a beautiful historic mansion that’s worth a visit in its own right. Restored by Prada, the space opened in 2017 after six years of reconstruction by a team of Italian and Chinese craftsmen and architects. The hundred-year-old, three-storey villa is now used for private events and exhibitions from artists endorsed by Prada across the globe. The Prada Rong Zhai mansion is currently closed, but keep an eye out for upcoming exhibitions.

Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Centre

Home to a fascinating collection of Chinese propaganda posters created beween 1910 and 1990, you won’t find an art museum like the Shanghai Propaganda Poster Art Center anywhere else in the world. Founder Yan Peiming first started collecting back in the ’90s and has amassed over 5,000 works – many rescued from recycling centres and rubbish bins. 

Lisson Gallery

First opening over half a century ago in London, Lisson Gallery is responsible for propelling the careers of key minimal and conceptual artists like Robert Ryman, Sol LeWitt and group Art & Language, as well as big-name British sculptors, like Julian Opie. Open by appointment only, gallery landed in Shanghai roughly two years ago, and while the Bundside space isn’t the largest you’ve ever seen, you can expect to see big names popping in – including their current exhibition of Opie’s latest works. 

Capsule Shanghai

Residing in a renovated 1930s garden house in Old Xuhui, this appointment-only gallery has its eyes set on China’s artists who push the boundaries of contemporary art and are destined for an international stage. If you go to the right show, you might just spot the next big thing. Open by appointment only (book via WeChat ID 'CapsuleShanghai').  

ShanghART Gallery West Bund

Among the first batch of contemporary art galleries established in China, ShanghART is a hotbed of talent dedicated to the development of Chinese contemporary art, helping many up-and-coming artists on their way to national and international success. Some of the aritsts ShanghART has supported on their way include Zeng Fanzhi, Ding Yi, Zhang Enli, Yang Fudong and Xu Zhen.

ShanghART Gallery (West Bund), Bldg 10, 2555 Longteng Dadao, near Fenggu Lu.

ShanghART Gallery (M50), Bldg 16, 50 Moganshan Lu, near Xi Suzhou Lu.

West Bund Museum

Opened in November 2019, West Bund Museum exhibits a fantastic collection of contemporary art on loan from Paris’ Centre Pompidou (home to the largest collection of modern art in Europe) as part of a five-year project between the two museums that will bring a series of exhibitions to Shanghai until 2024. Currently you can see the works of some of the world’s best artists since the 1920s – Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp and more.

YellowKorner

If you’re looking to take some high-quality art home with you without breaking the bank, pick up gorgeous photographs at the Shanghai outpost of YellowKorner, a global gallery first founded in Paris in 2006 and now has almost 100 locations all over the world. Displaying and selling limited-edition art photographs from renowned photographers, here you’ll see works from the likes of Damien Dufresne, Arno Elias and Chinese photographer Yang Bin.

YellowKorner (Ferguson Lane), Ferguson Lane, 376 Wukang Lu, near Taian Lu. 

YellowKorner (Anfu Lu), 201 Anfu Lu, near Wulumuqi Lu.

teamLab Borderless Shanghai

After dazzling with their inaugural Shanghai exhibition at TANK Shanghai in the spring of 2019, by late autumn that year Japanese digital art collective teamLAB had set up their first permanent museum outside of Japan right here in our fair city. Located right next to fellow giant the Power Station of Art and sprawling across 6,600sqm, the interactive space is a playground of mirrored rooms reflecting infinite lights, colours and immersive projection art that mixes dreams and reality.

UCCA Edge

One to watch in the new year, Beijing’s brilliant contemporary art museum UCCA is getting a Shanghai outpost in early this year. Designed by New York-based architecture and design firm SO-IL, the three-storey, 5,000sqm museum will be the institution’s third location, after its original space in the capital’s 798 art district and UCCA Dune overlooking the Bohai Sea. If programming from the other locations is anything to go by, we can expect big things – previous shows in Beijing include the most comprehensive Pablo Picasso exhibition ever held in China and its current exhibition dedicated to augmented reality featuring artists like KAWS, Nina Chanel Abney, Olafur Eliasson and Cao Fei. 

M50

The textile mill-turned-art zone at 50 Moganshan Lu in Putuo district has been around for two decades. Since its establishment by local artist Xue Song in 2000, the former industrial space attracted a string of artists to set up their studios for its convenient location and cheap rent. Today, M50 has well secured its status as a significant incubator for a much edgier and more experimental branch of contemporary art.

West Bund

The younger West Bund on the Xuhui Waterfront is becoming Shanghai’s new art centre. It houses institutions that pull in big ticket shows and a plethora of sleek galleries, artist studios and design firms. The annual West Bund Art and Design Fair, which takes place there, has put the area under the spotlight for the world to see.