Sculpture is the best comment that a painter can make on painting

Pablo Picasso said that and we have no idea what it means. Shanghaiist is a bit out of our element writing about art, especially sculpture, so take this review with a grain of salt. We decided to check out the newly opened Shanghai Sculpture Space's exhibit entitled "Sculpture a Century" (our 12th grade Scottish English literature teacher would surely have sighed and tsked tsked upon seeing this). There are three main areas, representing different styles and time periods, though we forgot what each one was. We couldn't see any unifying threads anyway and decided just to walk through and take a look at each piece. The kinds of sculptures that Shanghaiist is more inclined to are the ones that have some humor and a dash of irony -- and while those constituted just a minority of the pieces, they were fairly interesting. The exhibit is free, so whether sculptures are your thing or not, it's at least worth a look. The old warehouse that it's housed in is actually not too big, so you could reasonably go through the whole exhibit in an hour.

The location is kind of odd and incongruous, right off Huaihai Xi Lu, surrounded by all the cookie cutter apartment buildings. But that's art in Shanghai for you -- even if you do manage to enter that rarefied realm for a few brief moments, step outside you're immediately and unceremoniously ejected back into the world of greasy street-side kitchens, rush hour spats, blaring horns, and the like. But having some space for public art is better than having none at all.

Shanghai Sculpture Space
570 Huai Hai Xi Lu 淮海西路 570号
Open daily 10AM-4PM except Mondays.