It is part of the initiative ‘El Prado in the streets’, which places his works in public spaces in the open air and within the reach of passers-by.
Although the Madrid metro brought Goya and Velázquez closer, it has been Shanghai the one that has united them in the same station, with an exhibition organized alongside the Prado Museum of the Spanish capital which brings reproductions of some thirty works to a busy stop in the Chinese metropolis.
From this Saturday, photographic reproductions of 29 works selected from among the “most representative” of the Museum’s collection will attract the eyes of passengers from the central station Middle Longhua Road, located at the intersection of lines 7 and 12 of the Shanghai subway, close to some of the city’s major art museums.
The metro network of the eastern Chinese metropolis, inaugurated less than 30 years ago, is already the largest in the world, with almost twenty lines that transport an average of more than 10 million passengers every day.
This is a privileged showcase for the works, which through the exhibition ‘Encounter with the Prado’ they will be able to be visited in Shanghai -city of almost 25 million inhabitants- in the form of life-size replicas and in great detail until next February 10.
Francisco de Goya and Diego Velázquez are, how could it be otherwise, the painters with the greatest presence in the show, with key paintings from the artistic history of Spain such as The dressed up maja, The Surrender of Breda O the girls.
There are also works by renowned international artists such as the copy of the Mona Lisa from the earliest known Leonardo da Vinci workshop so far; The gentleman with his hand on his chest, by El Greco, or The viewby Jan Brueghel the Elder and Pedro Pablo Rubens.
And the wink to China could not be missing, with paintings like Table with tablecloth, salt shaker, golden cup, cake, jug, porcelain plate with olives and roasted poultry, of the flamenco Clara Peeters, in which the plate shown is precisely porcelain imported from the Asian country.
The exhibited works are displayed in chronological order to give visitors “an overview of the development of art history from the Renaissance to the late 19th century.”
Transfer in a “Bubble of Beauty”
Likewise, videos will be projected with data on the restoration and the stories of the works, “helping to better understand each piece”, and QR codes have been installed that passengers who do not have time to watch the exhibition can scan to access a ‘mini-program’ of the popular social network WeChat in which complementary information, photos and videos will be offered.
“It is interesting for the metro commuter, who is usually in a hurry. And reproducing a room in a museum draws a lot of attention, because we have put lighting and painted the walls simulating the intimacy of a room that the subway normally does not have “explained to Efe Inmaculada González Puy, director of the Miguel de Cervantes Library in Shanghai, one of the institutions that organized the exhibition.
The Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), the Embassy of Spain in China, Turespaña and the Association of Friendship of the People of Shanghai with Foreign Countries also participated in these tasks.
This joint effort aims to promote an “unexpected encounter” that takes the passengers of the Shanghai subway “out of their routine”, inviting them to “slow down” and immerse themselves in a “bubble of beauty”, the Museum explained in a statement.
This is not the first time that the Prado has left “its walls” to go “to meet people”: for example, last May it hung about twenty replicas of its collection in different “unexpected” places in Madrid to “surprise and invite you to visit the museums”.
And, since 2015, he has taken his initiative ‘El Prado in the streets’, which places his works in public spaces in the open air and within the reach of passers-by, to countries closely linked to the history of Spain as Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Peru, Paraguay, Equatorial Guinea, the Philippines and the United States.
In the case of Shanghai, it is the first exhibition of its kind that the Museum has held in China.
“The subway is an excellent platform for the dissemination of our language and our culture, since (the Middle Longhua Road station) is a place where between 90,000 and 100,000 people pass daily”, González Puy stressed. (I)
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