Tank Shanghai, art centre in disused oil tanks, opens in West Bund. We take a look inside
- Consisting of five huge converted oil tanks by the Huangpu River, the space offers generous dimensions of which artists can take advantage
- But with the delay of the nearby DreamCenter complex – sold by its investors last year to the local government – footfall is likely to be lower than hoped
Tank Shanghai is an unusual place to see art even for the art-mad metropolis. The city boasts some of the country’s best-known galleries, which often double as architectural marvels. There is the Long Museum West Bund built out of an old coal storage facility; the Power Station of Art that took over an entire electricity plant; and the Rockbund Art Museum in the art deco RAS Building on the Bund. But an art centre housed inside several disused aviation oil tanks on the bank of the Huangpu River has got to take the cake when it comes to novelty of experience.
A desolate riverbank strewn with derelicts of its industrial past, the area was at the time beginning its transformation into a hub for businesses of the future – artificial intelligence and creative multimedia products – and contemporary art was seen as a way of complementing them.
Prior to Tank’s public opening on March 23, the West Bund had already seen the arrival of the Long Museum, the Yuz Museum, the Shanghai Centre of Photography, numerous commercial galleries, and the annual West Bund Art and Design fair, introduced in 2014. But this latest addition, designed by the Beijing-based firm Open Architecture, stands out as an irresistible destination for people to “check in” on social media.
