On March 8, as the last group of viewers reluctantly left the exhibition hall of the Shanghai Art Museum (China Art Palace), "The New Life – Centenary Exhibition of Guangdong Art" officially came to an end. This art feast, which will last for nearly five months starting from October 18, 2025, presents a "visible century-old history of Guangdong art" to audiences in Shanghai and across the country, and also connects the cultural dialogue between Shanghai and Guangdong that has lasted for a century. The Shanghai Station has set a record for the exhibition's largest exhibition scale, largest number of visitors, and widest communication influence over the years. It has received a total of more than 550,000 visitors, held more than 100 diversified public education activities, and the entire network has exceeded 1.018 billion. It has become a high-profile event in Shanghai's cultural and art circles recently.
A historic handshake between two pioneers, an artistic dialogue spanning a century
As an important event of the 24th China Shanghai International Arts Festival "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Culture Week", "The New Life – Centenary Exhibition of Guangdong Art" is guided by the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, the Guangdong Provincial Department of Culture and Tourism, and the Guangdong Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and co-sponsored by the Guangdong Museum of Art, the Shanghai Art Museum, and the Guangdong Artists Association. The exhibition lasted for 141 days, opening in the final year of the "14th Five-Year Plan", extending to the beginning of the "15th Five-Year Plan", and closing during the National Two Sessions in 2026. This phenomenal exhibition injected strong cultural momentum into this period of inheriting the past and ushering in the future, and also provided a clear answer to "focusing on promoting the common prosperity of people's spiritual life."
The exhibition brings together about 800 pieces/sets of Guangdong fine arts, with an exhibition area of nearly 20,000 square meters. It is the first time that the essence of Guangdong fine arts has appeared on such a grand scale in Shanghai. The exhibition landed in Shanghai, which contains profound cultural and contemporary significance. As the first two major cities in China to open up, Shanghai and Guangdong share a common maritime cultural gene and an open and inclusive spirit. They have always echoed and empowered each other in the process of modern social transformation. In this exhibition, Shanghai-style culture and Lingnan culture have achieved a collision and integration that spans centuries.
From the "Two High School and One Chen" founders of "The Truth Pictorial" and the Aesthetic Library in Shanghai in 1912, to the Centenary Exhibition of Guangdong Art blooming on the banks of the Huangpu River, the artistic exchanges between Shanghai and Guangdong have lasted for more than a century. Shanghai has an open mind to accommodate all rivers and rivers, providing development space for all kinds of artistic practices, and welcoming cultural waters from all over the world with an open attitude. Shanghai-style art has also achieved self-transcendence through constant blending and collision.
The grand exhibition “The New Life” has landed in Shanghai. It is not only a cultural return that spans a century, but also a handshake again between the two forerunners of modern Chinese culture. It is an affectionate look back at the two paths of Chinese art’s transformation from tradition to modernity in the new era. This cross-regional artistic dialogue allows the innovative spirit of Lingnan and the inclusive temperament of the Shanghai style to nourish each other, becoming a vivid example of the symbiosis and co-prosperity of regional cultures in the modernization process of Chinese art, and providing valuable inspiration for the contemporary transformation and development of Chinese art.
Visible century-old art history, a "cultural aircraft carrier" level art event
Since its opening, the exhibition has continued to attract a large number of Shanghai residents, art lovers, teachers and students from professional colleges, and visitors from the Yangtze River Delta region. According to statistics, the exhibition received a total of more than 550,000 visitors during the exhibition period. Many visitors came from all over the country, including Hangzhou, Nanjing, and Suzhou, to see the classics of Lingnan art. According to Chen Xiang, vice chairman of the Shanghai Artists Association, the exhibition has set many "bests" among Guangdong-themed exhibitions – the most complete clues, the most solid historical materials, and the most shocking space. The exhibition can be called a "cultural aircraft carrier" event in the history of cultural exchanges between Shanghai and Guangdong. It is like a majestic and colorful symphonic epic, vividly presenting the development of Guangdong art and even modern Chinese art over the past century in front of the audience.
Wang Shaoqiang, chief curator of the exhibition and director of the Guangdong Museum of Art, said: "In the selection of works, the exhibition established three dimensions: historical context, practical results, and spiritual inheritance. These works are like cultural anchors, closely connecting the narrative of Guangdong with the urban memory of Shanghai, and stimulating deep resonance among local audiences." In the exhibition hall, the audience either stopped to admire classic masterpieces, carefully read the exhibit descriptions, or exchanged impressions with their peers. The classic paintings of Gao Jianfu, Chen Shuren and Gao Qifeng, the founders of the Lingnan School of Painting; the artistic masterpieces of Lin Fengmian and Guan Liang, who have deep connections with Shanghai; the huge landscape paintings of Guan Shanyue and Li Xiongcai; the exquisite figure paintings of Yang Zhiguang and Lin Yong; and the prints of representatives of the emerging woodcut movement such as Huang Xinbo, Gu Yuan and Li Hua, have become the focus of the audience's rush to take photos. This narrative of Shanghai and Guangdong’s “Tale of Two Cities” allows the audience to appreciate Lingnan art while also re-examining the century-long dialogue and integration between Shanghai School of Art and Lingnan School of Painting. Many viewers said that it was a rare opportunity to appreciate so many representative works of Guangdong art masters at one time and they were deeply shocked.
A local Shanghai audience said emotionally during an interview: "In the past, my understanding of the Lingnan School was mainly based on books. Today, when I see these original works with my own eyes, I can truly feel the charm of 'eclectic Chinese and Western, blending ancient and modern'. Especially Mr. Guan Shanyue's "Green" "The Great Wall of Color" is majestic and unforgettable." A student from the China Academy of Art said: "The exhibition is very clear and gives our young students a systematic understanding of the century-old history of Guangdong art, which is very inspiring for our future creations."
Highly praised by professional and academic circles, and social response continues to increase
The exhibition attracted great attention from the art and academic circles in Shanghai and even the Yangtze River Delta region. Since its launch, a number of professional organizations including the Shanghai Artists Association, Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy, Shanghai Oil Painting and Sculpture Academy, Liu Haisu Art Museum, and Shanghai University Academy of Fine Arts have organized artists and researchers to visit the exhibition collectively.
During the exhibition, the social influence continued to expand, attracting great attention and follow-up reports from many mainstream media outlets in central and Shanghai. There are 5,350 pieces of relevant information on the entire network, with a cumulative influence value exceeding 1.018 billion. It constitutes a multi-level, high-intensity communication from the core art circle to the field of popular culture, pushing the issue of "Its fate is new" to a broader public opinion field.
The influence of this exhibition extends from the exhibition hall to the city's public space, integrating into the public life and iconic landscape of Shanghai. The "Light and Shadow Art Museum" lights up the banks of the Suzhou River and launches an art experiment empowered by technology. It uses digital light and shadow as the medium to interpret the exhibition's classic masterpieces, renewing the century-old charm of Lingnan Art in the blend of technology and art, creating another urban cultural check-in place for the exhibition. The presentation at six core subway stations enables the exhibition image to accompany daily commuting, reaching more than 25 million citizens and visitors, and becoming a flowing urban cultural landscape. At the same time, the exhibition was launched on the big screen of Aurora in Lujiazui, dialogue with the historical light and shadow of the Bund, and received a total of 2.4 million views and stops. The coverage of this dual space marks the transformation of the exhibition from an in-museum academic project into a cultural event that breathes the same breath as the city and is widely embedded in the public eye, achieving an effective transformation of its social influence.
