An official with Shanghai Museum said the museum has hosted an
increasing more exhibitions over the past five years, which clearly
demonstrated a renaissance of Chinese culture, according to a
Xinhua News Agency report on February 28.
Li Rongrong, director of the display arrangement department,
told Xinhua that "in the past the museum just displayed cultural
relics now it displays the culture." She said Shanghai Museum has
created a general interest in things cultural by presenting big
exhibitions every year.
In 2001 the "Wonders of Snowland -
Tibet Cultural Relics" exhibition inspired by Potala Palace was
held in Shanghai Museum. Li said they set up a Tibet-styled Buddha
worshipping Hall with its walls covered in mural paintings of
various subjects. Behind the 3.5-meter-tall statue of Buddha
Maitreya were huge numbers of Buddhist scripture books which made
visitors get a strong sense of the mystery and sacredness of
Tibetan culture.
In 2002 the cultural relics from excavations at Cemetery of
Marquis of Jin in
Shanxi Province came to Shanghai Museum. The tombs of the
Marquis, one of the most important discoveries in recent Chinese
history, yielded a large number of bronzes and jade items. The find
provided significant evidence to assist in putting together the
picture of bronze and jade development during the Western Zhou
Dynasty (1027 BC - 771 BC).
To properly show off the relics Li said they made the exhibition
hall an old Shanxi residence which resembled the famed Qiao Family
Compound. They had produced a delicately brick-carved lintel and a
pair of big red lanterns which created a rich Chinese cultural
atmosphere.
To impress visitors in 2003 with the national treasure "Chun Hua
Ge Tie" rubbings from ancient tablets, Li said they had gone as far
as to move a steel corridor forming part of a garden in southern
Yangtze River area from Ming and Qing dynasties to Shanghai
Museum's exhibition hall.?
In 2004 museum audiences were treated with 219 pieces of
national treasure from the four dynasties of Zhou (1100 BC – 221
BC), Qin (221 BC – 206 BC), Han (206 BC – AD220) and Tang (618 –
907). Li's department re-constructed a terra-cotta warrior vault by
using 16 bags of loess from the Northwest Plateau. When visitors
arrived they found themselves in a very life-like scene of where
archeologists first discovered the terra-cotta warriors. The 50-day
exhibition attracted 300,000 people.
In 2005 Shanghai Museum embraced the treasures of the Forbidden
City including "Ping Fu Tie," the earliest calligraphic works
unearthed in China. This time the exhibition hall became a gallery
exhibiting classic calligraphies and paintings?--?using a
long corridor in ancient architecture and adding appropriate music
from Guqin.
Li has received many honors for her contributions to superbly
designed cultural exhibitions. She was even invited to Musée du
Louvre in France to give a presentation on the museum exhibiting of
Chinese art to European professionals.
But Li said her greatest pleasure is to see audiences experience
the beauty of ancient Chinese culture and get a feel the variety of
civilizations which produced it.
"A great museum should constantly bring in all kinds of
exhibitions," she commented.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Rui, March 11, 2006)
