Shanghai Museum teams up with Cai Guoqiang for Cartier exhibition

"Cartier, the Power of Magic" will be the highlight of an exhibition in November.

To celebrate the 60th anniversary of China-France diplomatic relations this year, the Shanghai Museum and Cartier Collection are collaborating again after two decades.

The exhibition, which will run from November 6 to February 17, 2025, will exhibit 298 pieces of jewelry, watches, archives, and other treasures from Cartier's collection, as well as 34 Chinese artifacts.

Well-known Chinese artist Cai Guoqiang and his team have developed "cAI?," an AI model that serves as the exhibition's scenography and visual director. This is the first time AI and the museum have designed an exhibition.

cAI? combines Jiangnan's poetic and pictorial beauty with cutting-edge AI technology for a unique viewing experience.

"Considering that there have been seven Cartier-themed exhibitions in China in the past, the first of which was held at the Shanghai Museum 20 years ago, we hope that the latest exhibition at Shanghai Museum East would express a sense of contemporary romance and freedom through the application of new AI technologies," Cai stated.

"The exhibition's design was inspired by the Jiangnan gardens' distinct form and ambiance, resulting in a spatial configuration that is reminiscent of a painting within a painting or a landscape within a landscape. We decided to merge AI-generated graphics with the stone carving and ceramic artisan talents of my hometown, Quanzhou, in Fujiang Province. This design, which combines AI-generated images of Ni Zan's (1301–1374) landscapes with Chinese courtyard texts, portrays the depth of traditional Chinese culture, echoing Cartier's innovative spirit and magic of natural stones and artisanal production in jewelry design."

Visitors to the exhibition can buy tickets on the WeChat mini program "上海博物館" when the pre-sale ticket window opens at noon on October 24.