The Paris couture house has named its first roster of Chinese and French artists for “A Sense of Touch,” a group exhibition opening at the Museum of Art Pudong this September
Chanel has unveiled the initial artist lineup for the Shanghai edition of La Galerie du 19M, the public-facing exhibition program of Le19M, the house’s Paris-based Métiers d’Art hub. The forthcoming group exhibition, titled “A Sense of Touch,” will feature new commissions by Chinese artists Ding Yi, Yin Xiuzhen, Shen Yuan, Wu Jian’an, Bi Rongrong and Qian Lihuai, alongside French creatives Diane Chéry, Deborah Fischer, Mathilde Albouy and Julian Farade, with additional names to follow.
Each commission is developed in collaboration with Chanel’s network of specialist ateliers, with the exhibition conceived as a living laboratory of cross-cultural craft, asking what emerges when techniques such as embroidery, pleating and feather work encounter lacquer, bamboo weaving or ceramics. The show is being curated by an editorial committee comprising Gong Yan, Lin Tianmiao, Zhang Lei and Christelle Kocher, the last of whom serves as artistic director of feather specialist Lemarié and pleating atelier Atelier Lognon.
La Galerie du 19M Shanghai will run from Sept. 25 to Nov. 15 on the entire third floor of the Museum of Art Pudong, which offers panoramic views of the Bund. Running alongside the main exhibition, a newly conceived edition of “Lesage: 100 Years of Fashion and Decoration,” developed jointly by Lesage and Émilie Hammen, will trace a century of embroidery and weaving at the storied house and pay tribute to its long-standing ties with China.
The Shanghai iteration follows previous stops in Dakar, Marseilles and Tokyo, but shifts the emphasis firmly toward Sino-French exchange. An introductory section designed by Studio Adrien Gardère will spotlight the savoir-faire of Le19M’s 11 resident maisons d’art, focusing on the gestures, tools, materials and creative processes that define them.
The Shanghai showcase extends Chanel’s strategy of using Le19M not only as an atelier network but as a cultural platform, with China remaining a central axis of that effort. Power Station of Art, the exhibition’s strategic partner, has maintained a formal relationship with Chanel since 2024. The commission-led format, rooted in atelier collaboration rather than product display, positions the program as craft diplomacy as much as brand presence.