Date Jan 15, 2012 - Apr 3, 2012

Time 9am-5pm

Phone 021-6327 2829

AN exhibition of prints by surrealist Joan Miro (1893-1983) - who once declared "an assassination of painting" - is underway at the Shanghai Art Museum through April 3.

Nearly 170 prints covering nearly five decades of the Catalan painter's work are exhibited in "Illusionary Reality, 2012 Miro Print Exhibition."

The painter, sculptor and ceramist is known for vivid and bold dreamlike, or delirium-like works that deconstruct traditional images and sometimes send elements reeling n space.

In early 1995, a Miro exhibition titled "the Oriental Spirit" was exhibited in Shanghai and there were many visitors but some were disappointed since they could not interpret Miro's art at that time, says Zhang Hong, spokeswoman for the museum.

Since then, Western modern art and concepts have become more familiar to the Chinese mainstream which still has fixed ideas about aesthetics but is more accepting of unusual work.

The Miro exhibition is organized by the Shanghai Art Museum and Shanghai Shimao Holding Group, which bought the whole collection from a Japanese collector last year.