COO transformed the bleak metro station in Shanghai into a temporary museum gallery. The exhibition showcases 29 carefully selected paintings from El Museo Nacional Del Prado in Madrid. By extracting artworks from their ‘home’ and inserting them into a least expected space, the pop-up museum brings a world-class cultural experience directly to the public and opens the world of art to a wider audience.

The exhibition aims to disrupt the busy passengers’ movements and invite them to hit a pause and appreciate a moment of focus. The metro station, a purely functional space where people just want to pass by quickly, is re-skinned with a classic midnight blue colour tone to evoke a sense of sublime beauty among the mundane urban scene. The pop-up museum environment transports the busy-minded passengers from their routine and creates a bubble where they can slow down and take a moment to contemplate.

Since the dawn of museums, they have evolved from private institutes into a platform for education and cultural exchange. Nowadays, visiting museums has become an inseparable part of a modern lifestyle. The project is an attempt to further infuse the cultural activities into public’s daily life. The collaboration between Shanghai Metro and the Prado Museum presents a creative way to engage the public in a time of travel restrictions. In 2019, the museum saw around 3.2 million visitors. As international traveling is restricted, this pop-up museum offers around 9.7 million passengers traveling through Shanghai Metro per day a chance of encounter with artworks that they might not have the opportunity to see in real life. The metro is the artery of the city, connecting people and places. With the authentic museum setup, the metro station also offers a new layers of connection to culture.

The carefully curated collection is displayed in chronological order from Renaissance to late 19th Century. Showcasing works from some of the most recognised artists such as Rubens, Diego Velázquez and Francisco de Goya, the exhibition guides visitors through key movements of art history in Europe. Traveling through time and space, the aura of the timeless artworks continues to inspire, no matter in a museum or a metro station.

Rich audio-visual contents are presented through a collection of short videos displayed along with the paintings. The videos touch on various subjects, including virtual tours through the Prado Museum’s galleries, documentation of Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang’s visit to the museum and a performance dedicated to the masterpiece by the famous pianist Lang Lang. In addition to the exhibition, detailed information about the paintings and audio-visual contents can be found on a customised program on WeChat. With a scan of QR code, visitors are able to bring the experience with them on the road.

This artistic intervention disrupts the absent-minded passengers’ movement and creates a pocket world of art in an unexpected urban public space, offering inspiration and focus. Perfectly recreating the environment and mood of a classical museum in metro station, the pop-up museum is built for everyone to appreciate art and culture.
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