A number of modern exhibitions at the Shanghai Art Museum have seen a surge of popularity.
 
Chinese people are best known for their interest in traditional art. But a number of modern exhibitions at the Shanghai Art Museum over the past few months have seen a surge of popularity.

First, there was the delivery from the famous Orsay Museum in Paris whose impressionist works were on show for 40 days. Now the Pompidou Center, another important museum in Paris, has sent its "New Wave" collection.
The public's enthusiasm for French modern art has even surprised the organizers.

It's about two hours from closing time, but the crowds outside the Shanghai Art Museum are as big as the day the French Impressionist Works opened to the public.

The show is titled Nouvelles Vagues, or New Wave, which to most Chinese, means a style of filmmaking from 1960s France.

The Pompidou Center's collections are another form of ¡®New Wave' including canvases, photographs and installations. There are 78 items with a combined value of two million euros.

The art works on show range from the early works of the 1960s to quite new creations which use digital and other advanced techniques.

Like the New Wave movies, which rebelled against big budgets to concentrate on everyday life, these art works also reflect the importance of free choice, our inability to understand the universe and the absurdity in human life. The combination of fixed and animated images creates a fresh and different visual impact that people can feel involved in.

Here is Mao Aimin from the Shanghai Art Museum, introducing one of the pieces.

"This piece is named Murder, which depicts a murder case on the spot. In the middle of the work stands a mirror with seven gun shot holes. Try standing in front of the mirror! You will find you are becoming part of the story. The artist gives the simple painting a three-dimensional visual effect."

The show is one of a series of largest contemporary exhibitions put on by the Shanghai Art Museum, two months from the start of the Shanghai Biennale.

Shanghai's newspapers have long been reporting the arrival of the New Wave art works. But the reports are always tempered with doubt about whether Chinese people would appreciate avant-garde art works.

Mao Aimin explains how people's interest in contemporary art has rocketed in recent months.

"In the past, contemporary exhibitions would receive a small number of visitors, who would leave thinking they couldn't really understand the art. But from last year's Biennale, things have changed. Everyday we receive thousands of visitors, and it is the same this time. We can't say people can fully appreciate the art works, but it's good to see that they are trying to understand it."

Here are two laymen I met at the show who are devotedly studying every piece.

"I am fond of photography, and I want to have a look at this artistic trend. I can't understand many of them, but I think with time, I will."

"It has nothing to do with my work or habit, but I'm curious, because I have never seen them before."

The Nouvelles Vagues exhibition is on in Shanghai for 40 days, then it travels to Guangdong and Beijing.

'Murder' in Shanghai : Local visitors look at a contemporary art work 'Murder' by French artist Jacques Monory during the Exhibition of Nouvelles Vagues by Centre Pompidou at Shanghai Art Museum.

(photo source: AFP)

Editor: Catherine