The controversial sculpture by artist Liu Jin entitled Injured Angels.(Photo Source: China Daily)

Many believe Shanghai is destined to become a major economic center. But Shen Qibin, director of Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art, believes the city should enact the more important role of international art center.

To Shen, Shanghai's artistic potential is at least equal to its economic prowess, and artists in Shanghai are inevitably more cosmopolitan than their northern Chinese cousins.

"Shanghai does not stick exclusively to its local culture, as it has always been tolerant and welcoming to foreign cultures," he says. "Shanghai belongs to the world as well as to China."

Shen and the Zendai Museum of Modern Arts have made conspicuous contributions towards achieving the municipality's ambition to be an international arts center. The ongoing "Intrude: Art & Life 366" project, curated by Shen, encompasses 366 art events throughout 2008, which means a different event each day. This makes it one of the boldest projects in the history of Chinese modern art.

The events, which take the form of exhibitions, site-specific installations, performances, concerts, films and debates, have been created by 100 Chinese and 266 international artists and artistic groups. Their exhibition venues include streets, parks, office buildings, squares, department stores - even local households.

Shen acknowledges that contemporary art is still an alien concept to many Chinese people, which is why he has agreed to curate this mammoth project.

"Although it's impossible for everybody to appreciate contemporary art, in our capacity of platform for contemporary art we should never turn away common people. We present art works beyond the walls of the museum in order to develop the relationship between contemporary art and the common people of China."

Even though Shen was mentally prepared for misunderstandings before the project started, his endeavor nevertheless produced unexpected results.

An March event of the "Intrude: Art & Life 366" project involved a series of sculptures by artist Liu Jin entitled Injured Angels.

Sculptures of life-size angels in Jin's image were suspended from high-rises in Shanghai. Arranged in the attitude of clinging on for dear life, the sculptures naturally appeared vulnerable, helpless and likely to fall. The artist explains, "During the current process of urban development, high-rises keep popping up, posing significant changes to our living environment. Faced with such a reality full of uncertainties, don't we also seem similarly tiny, fragile and helpless?"

Put that way, the project seems both project logical and emotive.

But the "angels" caused panic among Shanghai citizenry. One senior citizen had a heart attack when she saw a sculpture dangling precariously from a tower block. Many mistook the "angels," hanging by their fingertips at dizzy altitudes for people attempting suicide.

After receiving several complaints, the Shanghai Municipal Law-Enforcement Bureau of City Comprehensive Administration ordered that the sculptures be removed.

Shen was frankly disappointed at this reaction. "Most Chinese people's concept of art is still confined to decoration. It has to do with our art education and is beyond my control. But these works at least provide an opportunity for people to touch contemporary art and also motivates them to question art boundaries," he says.

Shen felt hugely gratified when he read the comment by one netizen: "I don't understand this work, but can accept it" on Injured Angels.

This comment gives Shen confidence about Chinese attitude towards contemporary art. "Today's youth have a much wider field of vision, and are far more tolerant than earlier generations. I believe it represents the direction of the future," Shen concludes.

Shen was born in 1966 in Jiangsu province, and was an artist before he began his career as curator. He was appointed executive director of the government-owned Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art in 2003 and left the position in 2006 after being made director of the non-governmental Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art.

The Injured Angels event is over, but others in the "intrude" project are ongoing at the rate of one a day. The entire "intrude" project is a step towards building Shen's ideal museum of modern art, whose focus is "localized construction with a global vision".

"Without global vision our construction cannot be objective, and without localization we will lose our roots," Shen says.

Shen believes that Shanghai should have at least three large-scale museums of modern and contemporary art, as well as museums for specific art forms such as painting, calligraphy, video and sculpture.

But artists' creations, Shen maintains, are most important to contemporary art, both in Shanghai and around the country.

"Enthusiasm for Chinese art works in the international market masks certain problems in Chinese art. Some Chinese artists use China symbols just to cater to Western tastes," says Shen. "Fortunately, there are also Chinese artists whose works display distinctive creativity and methodology. Although they are not the most popular artists in the market, they contribute more to world art."

Last year, Shen co-curated the "Soft Power: Asian Attitude" exhibition, in which the works of some 30 artists with Asian backgrounds toured Poland, Germany and China, before going on to tour other countries to present the works of new artists. Participant Chinese artists included Jin Feng, Qiu Zhijie, Song Dong and Wu Gaozhong.

"The 'Soft Power: Asian Attitude' exhibition proposes that we can, from the angle of techniques and procedure, learn from and reflect Western contemporary art. We shall, however, also reconsider how present-day Asia, with its unique cultural roots, develops and establishes a new Asian value concept," Shen explains.

"I believe that China's greatest contribution to the world in the 21st century will not be economic, but cultural."