HONG KONG, May 9, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Experience the charm of diverse art collisions on the Bund this summer! From May 6th to May 31st, 2023, the third edition of Bund Art Festival is launched on the bund Shanghai, jointly created by the Fosun Foundation, Bund Financial Center (BFC) and Yu Yuan Garden Mall. Through a variety of interactive experiences such as large-scale public art installations, art exhibitions, trendy markets, art forums, and workshops, this event is going to connect art with daily life, allowing art enthusiasts to enjoy the beauty of life brought by art on the Bund.

The Bund Art Festival has invited special guests including Wang Jinyuan, Chairman of Fosun Foundation, actress and artist Tan Zhuo, artist and cartoonist TANGO, as well as renowned cultural scholar and curator Dr. Shen Qilan to serve as art ambassadors and present exciting art forums. The four art ambassadors will share their professional insights and interesting anecdotes from different fields of the art industry with the guests, leading art enthusiasts to deeply experience the charm of art. In addition, the Fosun Foundation will also offer a special art tour guided by Tan Zhuo to share and exchange the experience of being an artist with the audience.

At this year's Bund Art Festival, the works of the two art ambassadors, Tan Zhuo and TANGO, hold great significance. Tan Zhuo, in addition to acting, explores artistic practices and attempts avant-garde expressions of multiple identities. Her video installation work, "Revelation," will appear at the Bund Art Festival, using stunning artistic language to converse with the public. At the same time, TANGO, known for his love of cats, will use cats as a creative theme to bring a new look to Yu Yuan Garden Mall. He will integrate his wild imagination into a playful and interactive experience, bringing an unmissable visual feast to this year's art festival.

BFC's new amusement map makes its debut, featuring a giant cat installation at the Bund Maple Corridor Art District.

To create a strong artistic atmosphere, BFC has connected all the art installations across the festival and created a new Bund Art Festival Map, providing art lovers with a one-stop check-in experience. Starting from the BFC Plaza, the "Qi Gathering and Formation - Origin of All Things" forest animal pioneer art exhibition by young Chinese sculptor Leng Shu will be presented, featuring a cute monster "Forest Animal Man" that can transform into various forms, extending to numerous sculptures such as "Hmm," "Ah," "Hum" and hanging paintings, bringing a fun exhibition experience. When arriving at the outdoor square of the Kyoto House, a lovable panda lying on a high platform will catch your eye. This artwork named "Juan" was created by the leader of China's avant-garde art movement, Zhao Bandi, offering a visual enjoyment full of avant-garde and romantic colors. In addition, on the second floor of the BFC, there will be the artwork "Leisure Bench" by artist Zhou Yilun, which draws inspiration from readily available objects, constructing a material ecology full of classics and street style, prehistoric and futuristic elements, and even different economic forms, making the art creation full of boundary-breaking fun.

Not only a visual experience, from May 7th to May 28th, the BFC Bund Maple Avenue Art Market will also be refreshed every weekend, gathering over 70 fashionable art brands, art organizations, and representative works of young artists, and introducing special activities such as street art performances, artist collaboration, handicrafts, graffiti, etc., making it a large-scale outdoor art studio with affinity and vitality. At the same time, on May 13th and 14th, the exhibition of 100 cute cat photos selected by Xiaohongshu will also land on The Weekend Market @BFC, Art ambassador TANGO will become a one-day vendor and appear at the market booth to create interesting cartoons for furry kids on the spot.

Teaming up with Xiaohongshu, BFC is creating the "Bund Cat Street" to connect with the one-stop art and travel experience at the Great Yu Garden Area

The literary work "Lin Shu" from the Song Dynasty recorded, "If only I could accompany a Feifei and wander, it would dispel my worries." The term "Feifei" in this quote, from the "Shan Hai Jing," has been identified by historians as the earliest domesticated pet in Chinese history - the cat. This magical creature can help humans alleviate their worries. The healing power of "petting cats" has not changed from ancient times to the present day. In collaboration with the official account of Xiaohongshu, the Bund Art Festival has launched an online topic #Send My Cat on the Wall#, calling for cat images from all over Shanghai. After being carefully created by the art ambassador TANGO, the images will be painted on the walls of the old city of Middle Fangbang Road, creating the popular art installation "Bund Cat Street," and infusing new artistic vitality into the old city blocks of Shanghai. As the link between BFC and Yu Yuan Garden Mall, Middle Fangbang Road, transformed into the Bund Cat Street, will connect the one-stop art and travel journey of the Bund Art Festival in the Great Yu Garden area.

Apart from the "Bund Cat Street" on Middle Fangbang Road, the large public art installations "The Artist, Invisible" at the BFC Plaza and "Joy in It" at the Central Square of Yu Yuan Garden Mall are also created by TANGO, featuring cute and colorful cat and wand images to create a fairy tale-like "cat owner" living scene. With the addition of AR technology, this artwork is even more interactive and fun - viewers can participate in various ways such as "seeing, touching, and taking pictures" and experience exclusive AR-generated photos of the Art Festival, feeling the charm of art in a futuristic way.

Liu Yi, Yu Ruojie, Zhang Yihan and Chen Zhen also launched public art projects and exhibitions at several locations including the Jiuqu Bridge in Yu Yuan Garden Mall, the window of Middle Fangbang Road in Tianyu Building, the YUYU Shop in Tianyu Building and the Old Street of the Yu Yuan Garden Mall respectively, creating a venue combining oriental life aesthetics and contemporary art through the "art tour"; during the Bund Art Festival, Yu Yuan Garden Mall will also have a variety of parades and performances every weekend. During the Bund Art Festival, Yu Yuan Garden Mall will also have rich parades and performing arts activities every weekend, with many diversified art and audio-visual feasts to accompany the summer opening, so that every corner of the building and every street can become a temple of art, allowing art to return to the public. In addition, artists will personally lead consumers to experience the "Yu-style new life", Dance Festival, One-Day Tour Shop Manager, AR interaction with virtual digital human AYAYI, and art salons, interpretation of innovation in traditional culture, in the Oriental mood to show the beauty of life.

Meet on the Bund's most beautiful rooftop art festival and hit the diverse art exhibitions

Along with the opening of BFC Bund Art Festival, Fosun Foundation public art project "Rooftop Art Festival" will be launched again on the fourth floor rooftop, with the most beautiful Bund skyline as the background, and through artist Zhou Yilun's new large-scale theme sculpture "What Makes Today's Life So Different", exploring more possibilities of deep interplay and dialogue between art and life. This mini aerial playground consists of a swing device that is 2.3 meters high and 2.6 meters wide, and a series of animal-shaped reclining chairs. It creates a "modern fantasy" where large animal landscapes intersect with the modern urban skyline, leading viewers to experience stunning surrealism through repeated swinging in the air.

The group exhibition "Demo: The Art of Decision-Making Technology" curated by artist and founder of MadeIn Company, Xu Zhen, is currently being exhibited at the Fosun Foundation. The exhibition showcases the creative practices of fifteen artists using new media. Through a dialogue of more than 20 pieces of works, including images, installations, and mixed media, the exhibition presents how the new generation of Chinese and international young artists combine their interests and research fields, and reflect on technology through technology in new contexts and challenges such as algorithms, artificial intelligence, and virtual worlds. They create, invent, and test their own responses and life experiences.

During the event, the solo exhibition "I'm Afraid You Will Forget Me" by the trendy artist Haolang will also be exhibited on the first floor of the Fosun Foundation，showcasing the artist's recent paintings, sculptures, and blind box dolls. Through the little boy KIWIWI, the exhibition aims to express the most complex and changeable emotions hidden deep within everyone's hearts to the audience.

Multi-city linkage explores new life, art inspiration lights up Huangpu River

In response to the opening of the 4th Shanghai "May 5 Shopping Festival", Fosun launched the 5th "515 Fosun Family Day" and joined hands with over 60 of its brands to participate in the Festival. Among them, Fudi & Xingdi use art to color life and bring a different home in the new year. In May this year, Wuhan The Bund Fosun Center, Shanghai Star Discovery Bay, Suzhou Luxi Yayuan, Rudong Shanghe Yinxiang, Nanjing Tomorrow's City, Jinan Fosun International Center and Chengdu Tianfu Bay joined together to participate in the Bund Art Season, creating a "cat IP + social as the core, inviting people from all over the world to participate and experience the beauty of art life on the Bund in Shanghai.

Especially in Wuhan BFC, and Shanghai BFC staged a "Tale of Two Cities", Tango cat art exhibition, rooftop meow yoga, meow fun parent-child activities, elite cat competition ...... to bring multiple experiences rich in "star-style life" enjoyment, looking forward to joining the "cat patrol" team with taste, fun and love.

At the same time, elements of the artists' creations from the Bund Art Season can be captured in the Hotel Indigo Shanghai, which sits adjacent to BFC with views of both sides of the Huangpu River, providing artistic inspiration for a design style that is vibrant and reflects the local humanities.

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