Originally planned for Shenzen, the Centre d'Art Rodin will open in Shanghai in September with an exhibition of around 50 works by the famed sculptor.
ADVERTISEMENTThe Musée Rodin in Paris is set to open its first overseas branch in the Chinese city of Shanghai.
Slated for September, the museum’s launch is timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties between France and China.
Backed by the French Ministry of Culture and State Administration of Cultural Heritage of China, with additional private funding from French-Chinese art collector Wu Jing, the new venue will be known as the Centre d’Art Rodin.
The China outpost of the French flagship institution – which focuses on the works of celebrated 19th-century sculptor Auguste Rodin – was initially planned for Shenzhen, just north of the Hong Kong border. With few updates since the project’s initial announcement in 2019, the South China Morning Post only recently confirmed the venue’s new location and planned opening date.
Its Shanghai home in the waterfront Pudong New Area will be the building originally constructed to house the French pavilion at Expo 2010, designed by French architect Jacques Ferrier.
Around 50 Rodin sculptures are expected to appear in the Centre d’Art Rodin’s inaugural show, running for two years and entitled ‘Rodin: The Inheritance of Modern Sculpture’.
Among the works that art lovers can expect to see will be plaster editions of ‘The Thinker’ (1904), 'The Age of Bronze’ (1877), and bronze iterations of ‘The Kiss’ (1882) and ‘The Walking Man’ (1907). In addition to works by the famed sculptor himself, visitors will be able to enjoy pieces by his student Antoine Bourdelle and Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, who taught the celebrated Rodin.
Works by Aristide Malliol, who is often compared to Rodin in his style of sculpture, and from Rodin’s own collection of Chinese art, will round out the show.
Last year, the Centre d’Art Rodin – which, in addition to its central Paris branch, has a site in the nearby town of Meudon, in the villa where Rodin lived until his death in 1917 – scrapped plans to build an outpost in Tenerife, following months of local pushback over the artist’s lack of connection to the area.
