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Erika Na

Enid Tsui

This September, Musée Rodin in Paris will open its first international outpost – in China.
The French museum’s two existing sites in central Paris and in nearby Meudon, in the villa where Auguste Rodin lived until his death in 1917, are well-known cultural destinations thanks to the fame and influence of the sculptor behind The Thinker (1904) and The Kiss (1882).
The new branch, a private museum called the Centre d’Art Rodin, is authorised by the Musée Rodin and is opening after eight years of preparation as the two countries mark 60 years of diplomatic relations.
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.


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Shanghai to launch first overseas branch of Paris’ Rodin museum with 50 of his sculptures

The sculpture The Thinker by Auguste Rodin, a plaster version of which will grace Shanghai’s Centre d’Art Rodin when it opens. It featured as part of touring exhibition in New York curated by Alberto Pinto. Photo: AFP

The Centre d’Art Rodin, the first overseas branch of the Musée Rodin in Paris, is opening in Shanghai, China, after eight years of planning. Photo: courtesy of Centre d’Art Rodin 

The Centre d’Art Rodin occupies the French Pavilion building erected for the Shanghai Expo in 2010. Photo: courtesy of Centre d’Art Rodin 

Rodin’s sculptures The Thinker (front) and The Kiss at the Hotel Biron housing the Musee Rodin in Paris in 2015, days before the museum’s reopening. Copies of both will grace its first overseas branch, opening in Shanghai. Photo: AFP

The exterior of the new museum, the latest cultural institution to open in the Pudong New Area of Shanghai. Photo: courtesy of Centre d’Art Rodin

My tour of Shanghai’s ‘very gay’ art scene with Russell Tovey, Talk Art podcast host

LGBTQ British actor Russell Tovey at the David Hockney exhibition he co-curated at Shanghai’s Modern Art Museum. Photo: MAM

Writer Cheung Hok-hang (centre) with Russell Tovey (left) and Shanghai art writer Lisa Movius in a taxi tour of Shanghai’s art hotspots. Photo: Cheung Hok-hang

Tovey addresses visitors at the opening of David Hockney: Paper Trails, an exhibition he co-curated at Shanghai’s Modern Art Museum. Photo: Cheung Hok-hang

An Image of Celia, State I (left), a lithograph on paper made by Hockney in 1986, and a signed digital print of Matelot Kevin Druez 2 (2009), on show at David Hockney: Paper Trails. Photo: MAM

The writer (left) with Russell Tovey (right) and art economist Richard Zhang in front of fibre artist Shi Hui’s work Frozen Wind (2004), at Shanghai’s Bank/Mabsociety Art Gallery during an art tour of the city. Photo: Cheung Hok-hang

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The exterior of Lévy Gorvy Dayan & Wei, photographed under an old name, in Central, in 2020. Photo: Google Maps

The exterior of Lévy Gorvy Dayan & Wei, photographed under an old name, in Central, in 2020. News of the gallery’s closure at the end of 2024 has raised questions over the future of Hong Kong’s art market. Photo: Google Maps

Rebecca Wei is Lévy Gorvy Dayan & Wei’s partner in charge of Asia. Photo: Rebecca Wei

Amanda Hon is managing director of Ben Brown Fine Arts in Hong Kong and co-president of the HKAGA.

Lifestyle

Arts & Culture

Centre d’Art Rodin in Pudong New Area opens in September with a show of versions of 50 Rodin sculptures, and artist’s Chinese art collection


Privately funded Centre d’Art Rodin in building that housed French Pavilion for 2010 Expo will launch in September with a show of 50 Rodin sculptures and dozens more by pupils of the artist.
