The most Instagrammable art exhibitions in Shanghai right now

Photograph: courtesy HOW Art Museum

Art is many things. Art can be stuffy and obtuse, or it can be a blast. It can really tie a room together, or it can tie a grassroots movement together. And, as an added bonus, it also makes for great Instagram feed content. If wet weather has you trapped inside, and you can't find the greater existential drive to post another moody cup of steamy tea by a rain-streaked window, art will save you.

Check out these Instagrammable art exhibitions in Shanghai, take some pics, reap the likes... and get some culture too.

Construction of Reality

Photographs: courtesy HOW Art Museum

If you're looking at the above photo and wondering how those people are hanging off the Shanghai Bell Tower, stop. 

Argentine artist and former architect Leandro Erlich, in his first solo exhibition at HOW Art Museum, manipulates familiar constructed environments with mirrors, inversions and optical illusions to create interactive installations about the relationships between an individual, society and the spaces we have built up around us. Whatever that means, it makes for some clever pictures.

Construction of Reality HOW Art Museum, No. 1, Lane 2277 Zuchongzhi Lu, near Shenjiang Lu, Pudong. Until Sun 14 Oct (closed Mondays). 100RMB; 180RMB (two adults); 240RMB (two adults and one child).

Systems

Photographs: Kenny Ong

Lin Tianmiao, known for video works and fabric sculptures about the female body, presents Systems at Rockbund Art Museum. The exhibition features two large-scale installations and a series of sculptures about, well, systems made of connected things forming a complex whole. Also featured are Tianmiao's iconic fabric sculptures 'Day-Dreamer' and 'High!!!'.

'My Garden' (pictured above) is the main attraction, but also there's a nifty installation that involves a small pod structure which you step into, place your wrist on a sensor, and the whole thing reacts to your pulse. Try taking deep breaths to make the pod react slowly, then think about taking the metro during rush hour to stress the system.

Photograph: High!!!

Photograph: 'Day-Dreamer'

Pictured above are two of Lin Tianmao's most iconic works, 'High!!!' and 'Day-Dreamer'. The MO is that these sculptures interrogate how society depicts the female form as both sexual and neutered. You can also just admire how the mass of singular cotton threads reflect light together to form a vague volume in space.

Systems Rockbund Art Museum, 20 Huqiu Lu, near Beijing Dong Lu. Until Sun 26 Aug (closed Mondays). 50RMB.

Storage Memory

Photographs: Kenny Ong

Known for a preoccupation with mortality and remembering, French contemporary artist Christian Boltanski's retrospective at the PSA offers an overview of his prolific career. Through installation, video and shadow theatre, the exhibition displays a collection of everyday items to 'build an archive of humanity' and a 'storage memory that encompasses personal experiences and collective histories.' 

Also, isn't that the biggest pile of clothes you've ever seen? Like, bigger than what you'd see in a teenage girl's room. Definitely feed worthy. Otherwise, you've got a gallery of sombre neon, moody monochrome and sobering stillness. If you find yourself wanting to express some existential angst via Instagram, here's your set.

Storage Memory Power Station of Art, 200 Huayuangang Lu, near Miaojiang Lu. Until Sun 8 Jul (closed Mondays). 60RMB.

Parallel World

Photographs: Kenny Ong

Bring your camera and a change of clothes, maybe a suitcase full of them, because this 'exhibition' is all about photos and the 'parallel world' they, in a manner, create. Can't deny that someone, or some committee, put some thought into this.

There's a room of hanging fake roses, hanging tinsel, a human-sized hamster wheel and cat castle and more 'installations'. There's even an Instagram-like sub-universe where everyone can share photos they've taken at each work, and then print them out right by the exit. Not much to say about this 'art exhibition' beyond that. 

I guess this is, by all appearances, an art exhibition, but with the explicit purpose of being a backdrop to selfies. It's a simulacrum of an art exhibition, if you will. If there's any upside to the nature of this exhibition, it's that there's a ball-pit, but even that is for photos and not swimming.

Parallel World Fourth Floor, Super Brand Mall, 168 Lujiazui Xi Lu, near Lujiazui Huan Lu, Pudong (next to Muji). Until Fri 31 Aug. 76RMB; 99RMB (Sat-Sun).

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