The Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai has announced its 2021 exhibition program, including the first large-scale exhibition of Zaha Hadid Architects in China, ZHA Close Up – Work & Research from 19 June - 15 September, and the first fully curated narrative museum featuring Andy Warhol in conversation with Alice in Wonderland, Alice in Warholand (AW|AW), in October.

Alongside the two major exhibitions, MAM Shanghai will activate its Riverbank promenade with a Sculpture Garden in November covering the museum’s kilometre and a half of riverfront terrain, and a Night Museum from December, projecting art onto the museum’s outdoor façade and plazas as a canvas.

The state of the art museum located at the heart of Shanghai’s cultural mile along the Huangpu River is a premier institution for contemporary art with a global and multidisciplinary approach.

MAM Shanghai Artistic Director, Shai Baitel said, "MAM Shanghai is excited to present an engaging, educational, and innovative programme in 2021 and beyond. It reflects my belief in making art ever more accessible, especially in times like these."

Zaha Hadid Architects x MAM

This first large-scale exhibition of Zaha Hadid Architects in China - ZHA Close Up – Work & Research - will display a cross section and overview of the studio’s 40 years of research into new design and construction techniques, as well as material innovations. On display at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) Shanghai will be a selection of architectural models and prototypes, project exhibition sketches and drawings, project renders, photographs and large video projections of built work and projects under construction.

Notably, the exhibition will showcase a selection of Chinese projects that have not been exhibited before, an extensive portfolio of multidisciplinary research projects and experimental designs, and a selection of furniture and product designs from the Zaha Hadid Design (ZHD) collection and from long-standing collaborations with other brands.

Alice in Warholand AW|AW

The first fully curated narrative museum experience, AW|AW, will premiere at MAM in October. The genre-breaking immersive exhibition showcases Andy Warhol in conversation with Alice in Wonderland, inviting the audiences on a 45-minute journey into the shared landscape of Warhol and Lewis Carroll’s Alice. The exhibition offers a new, never before seen form of immersive theatricality meeting a traditional museum setting, where audiences enjoy a multi-sensory experience that follows a curated narrative leading them through a series of rooms. Modern Art Museum Shanghai’s Artistic Director, Shai Baitel, conceived Alice in Warholand, which was developed through an essay he co-authored with Leonard Marcus, the preeminent scholar of children's literature, as well as Eric Shiner, the leading expert on Andy Warhol.

MAM Sculpture Garden

Additionally, MAM Shanghai will launch the MAM Sculpture Garden in November 2021. Making use of the museum’s kilometer and a half of riverfront terrain, the MAM Sculpture Garden will consist of a series of independent curatorial concepts in the form of two-year installations.

Drawing from a diverse group of international and local artists, the MAM Sculpture Garden will be a fundamentally ecological art project. Artists will be tasked with creating installations using exclusively natural, recycled, or recyclable materials.

Through both the materials used and concepts invoked, the MAM Sculpture Garden will seek to educate the general public about their relationship with the natural world. The harmony of the relationship between visitors, art, and nature will create a transcendent experience—rare in urban areas like Shanghai—where art becomes intrinsically tied with both the self and the environment. Open, accessible, and free of charge year-round, the MAM Sculpture garden will offer the public a highly contemporary vision of the art world outside of the confines of the walls of a museum or gallery.

The Night Museum

MAM Shanghai is the first museum in the world fully committed to an outdoor night program. The Night Museum is an interdisciplinary, outdoor series of art exhibitions opening in December. First conceptualized during the Covid-19 pandemic, the Night Museum seeks to reimagine the museum beyond a typical indoor white-cube model. Using the museum’s façade and plazas as a canvas, individual artists or groups will create bespoke art works in a digital format that will be screened or projected onto the structure.

Each exhibition will last between three and four months and will be visible and accessible to the general public—free of charge—nightly. Among the first contributors to the Night Museum will be artists Dominic Harris, Michal Rovner, Maggie West, as well as Daata Editions. An innovative and timely gesture, the Night Museum will help maintain public access to art while we live through, on a global scale, an era in which many indoor cultural institutions are shuttered.

The Night Museum will also be a significant artistic boon for the city of Shanghai. Owing to MAM’s privileged location on the city’s waterfront, the Night Museum will be visible to thousands of residents to the city, from sunset to sunrise, every night of the year, pushing the boundaries of accessibility and distribution of art.

MAM Shanghai contributes to the education, knowledge and enjoyment of art through its exhibitions, artistic collaborations, events, and festivals from all over the world.

The expertly renovated and redesigned coal bunker is the largest contemporary art museum in Shanghai, measuring over 7,000 square meters. It sits at the heart of the dynamic MAM Riverbank cultural zone, stretching 1.2 kilometres along the Huangpu River just south of the Pudong Central Business District. MAM Riverbank boasts not only the museum, but an outdoor sculpture park, and fine dining restaurant MESS.

MAM Shanghai: www.en.mamsh.org