Renowned Italian artist's works hailed in complete retrospective

The Museum of Art Pudong is currently hosting Solo, an exhibition billed as one of the largest global showcases of the Italian still-life master Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) in the 21st century. Featuring over 200 works sourced from more than 30 international institutions and private collections, including more than 50 on loan from the Museo Morandi, the exhibition includes about 140 original pieces by Morandi, with around 120 making their debut in China.

Beyond the volume of works, the exhibition aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the artist's career across various media. According to Li Minkun, chairman of the MAP, the showcase includes two rare portraits — a self-portrait and a portrait of one of the artist's sisters — as well as the original vases and jars featured in Morandi's paintings. Additionally, 57 photographs documenting his residence, studio and living environment in Bologna provide context for his reclusive lifestyle.

Morandi is widely regarded as one of the most influential Italian painters of the 20th century, renowned for his subdued still-life paintings of bottles and vases. His work prioritizes the interplay of light, shadow and form over the utilitarian aspects of objects. In recent years, his low-saturation, balanced color palette has gained significant traction within China's pop culture landscape.

Lorenzo Balbi, director of the Museo Morandi in Bologna and co-curator of the exhibition, notes that Morandi's popularity appears particularly strong in China compared to Europe.

Balbi states that the curatorial team carefully selected from major global museums, foundations, and public and private collections to assemble the most extensive solo presentation of Morandi's work to date, calling it a "complete retrospective".

The exhibition's title, Solo, references both Morandi's reclusive lifestyle — he rarely left his hometown of Bologna, where he lived with his sisters — and his singular artistic approach.

Balbi compares Morandi to a unicorn, emphasizing his development of a unique visual language independent of the prevailing avant-garde movements. He adds that Morandi's practice offers a pertinent lesson for contemporary society: the necessity of focus and depth in a fast-paced world.

Francesco D'Arelli, director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai and co-curator, observes traces of Chinese aesthetics in Morandi's work, noting that the artist created a distinct Chinese atmosphere in his oil paintings, watercolors and etchings. He describes the exhibition as a significant page in Sino-Italian cultural cooperation.

To enhance the viewing experience, the curators redesigned the exhibition space to evoke a domestic setting. The ceilings were lowered, parquet flooring was installed, and the galleries were divided into more than 30 smaller rooms.

"We want to bring people into a more domestic environment, and have a one-on-one experience with Morandi's paintings, even though this museum is well-visited," Balbi tells the media.

Solo coincides with the MAP's fifth anniversary. Concurrently, the museum has launched Jean Nouvel: Without the Artist, Architecture Disappears, the first major exhibition of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect's work held in a building of his own design, featuring films, models and archival materials spanning his 50-year career.