Best of Prado Museum stops off at Metro station
A 600-square-meter hall at the Middle Longhua Road Metro Station has become a temporary art gallery with replicas of artworks from the Prado Museum in Spain.
The station has become a gallery.
The Middle Longhua Road Metro Station in Shanghai has been converted into a temporary art gallery with replicas of 29 paintings from Spain's Prado Museum.
The "Metro Meets Prado" exhibition was opened to the public following a ceremony on the weekend in a 600-square-meter section of the Metro station near the West Bund Art Center.
The Prado Museum, the main Spanish national art museum in Madrid, is one of the most famous galleries in the world and houses a splendid collection of Spanish and European art.
The launch ceremony
Prado's exhibition in the Metro station is the first of its kind in Shanghai, allowing residents to enjoy pieces from leading art museums without having to leave Shanghai, particularly under current pandemic restrictions.
A total of 29 artworks were selected – which have been restored and reproduced to original sizes – by the Prado Museum.
Displaying these pieces in the Metro means that current pandemic rules will not pose a restriction on an audience.
Notable pieces exhibited include "Las Meninas," or "The Maids," a 1656 painting by Diego Velázquez, the leading artist of the Spanish Golden Age. It has been one of the most widely analyzed works in Western painting due to its complex and enigmatic composition.
Other pieces include a replica of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" reproduced by his students and "La Vista," or "The Sense of Sight," by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Ruben.
A replica of the workshop version of Leonardo Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa"
"We hope that anyone that passes will appreciate the works shown by the Prado Museum, and share our love of art as one international family," said Andrés Úbeda de los Cobos, deputy director of the Prado Museum.
Jing Ying, vice president of Shanghai People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, said the exhibition will help Shanghai improve its soft power and promote people-to-people exchanges between China and the rest of the world.
The exhibition will close on February 10, 2022. The exhibition hall is near the Exit 1 of the station.
Visitors take photos.
