“Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project” is the largest ever cultural exchange between France and China, signed in 2018. The new museum, located in a wing of the West Bund Art Museum in Shanghai, in Xuhui Waterfront district – that is destined to become one of the largest cultural distric of Asia – opens to the public on November 8.  

About the selection of Shanghai as city hosting the project, Serge Lasvignes, president of the Centre Pompidou explains: “Shanghai boasts huge modern appeal and is open to exchanges. It looks set to become the new cultural hub of the 21st century: museums are being established and developed there at an astounding pace”. The agreement is a five-year partnership providing, among other features, the loan of works from the Centre Pompidou collections and the possibility for Chinese artists to present projects and exhibitions at the art museum in Paris.

Throughout the five years, the collaboration provides a multi-disciplinary programme, with three semi-permanent exhibitions in five years and two temporary exhibitions per year. The West Bund Museum, designed by the office of British architect David Chipperfield, occupies 25,000 sqm on the banks of the River Huangpu, including three exhibition halls located in three different volumes. The museum provides an auditorium, a workshop area, the “Box” for multimedia installations, the “Gallery 0” for projects by emerging artists, a café and a shop.