"For a memorable cocktail, carefully select high-quality ingredients to create a risky combination, offering a unique experience that awakens the senses and help you to see life in a different light," read the front page of the "menu" of the new exhibition. “If you don't use your eyes to see, you will use them to cry,”presented by the German artist Tobias Rehberger is now open at Rockbund Art Museum in Shanghai.

This is a unique exhibition. It transformed the outside world -- the butcher's shop, the rooftop bar, the tearoom - all into the museum. Larys Frogier, Director of the Rockbund, explained that: “through the transition of moving from the outside into the exhibition, the audience will be immersed into a dazzling alternative world that subverts the boundaries of these different realities, therefore opening up new entry points to imagine how art can fuse together with our life.”That said, a more important purposeof the exhibition in my opinion is to encourage more and different kinds of people, regardless of interests, to frequent museums and find something to enjoy while there.

Read our interview with Larys Frogier on curation and museum sustainability

▲ Tobias Rehberger,Pixels series, 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

Tobias Rehberger is a German sculptor, whose work is characterized by transformation, serendipity, collaboration and shared experience. His artwork Was du liebst bringt dich auch zum weinen (2009) won the Golden Lion for the 53rd Venice Biennale. Working across diverse scales and media, Rehberger is fascinated by the boundless possibilities of object and environment. In his exhibition in Shanghai, many of the artworks are newly commissioned for the Rockbund Art Museum.

▲ Potrait of Tobias Rehberger

Outside of the museum, a neon sign hints at the fully functional "butcher shop". When I stepped into the museum, the butcher shop was in front of my eyes. Cooperating with Blackbird, one of the most popular restaurants in Shanghai, the butcher shop sells real meat and sausages. Customers can also enjoy a taste of homemade sandwiches by Blackbird's chef Blake. The way of presentation overthrows our usual expectations of “seeing” an exhibition. From Francis Bacon to Zeng Fanzhi, meat is always an important motif. The representation of the meat in the museum is art, rather an object in real life. Through different ways of “seeing” the meat, the audience would probably start to think about art again...

▲ Tobias Rehberger，If you don’t use your eyes to see, you will use them to cry, 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

Moving onto the second floor of the exhibition, I walk into a black room with an assembly of vases. The artist invites his friends, including Franz Ackermann, Sam Taylor-Wood and Wolfgang Tillmans to select and compose flower-adorned arrangements and then put them into differently designed vases. When wandering through the room, I feel as though I am in a museum looking at sculptures by famous artists.

▲ Tobias Rehberger，Vase Portraits series, 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

The third floor is a presentation of performance art at Pee, Tea, an installation that is composed of a bathroom and a Japanese tea house. First, you need to visit the bathroom in the installation. After pressing the flush button, you can walk to the other side and get a cup of tea and enjoy it in the tea room. This exciting experience tries to indicate a kind of logical connection between the act of drinking tea and peeing. If we explore further, we see the recycle and transformation that keeps the world going.

▲ Tobias Rehberger,Pee, Tea, 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

▲ Tobias Rehberger,Pee, Tea, 2019, exhibition scene, Rockbund Art Museum

Entering the fourth floor of the exhibition, a cluster of neon lights spell the word “free” shining to the beat of the music. I find myself looking at what appears to be a controlled mid-air explosion of gigantic outdoor signage. The audience is encouraged to plug their phone into the system of the installation and play their favourite song. Immersed in music and colourful neon lights, the audience is encouraged to start looking at the commercial society we live in from a different perspective.

▲ Tobias Rehberger，Free Coffee Free Parking Freedom (plug & play version), 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

Finally, on the top floor is the Forbidden in Heaven, Useless in Hell; a rooftop cocktail bar that is also cooperating with Blackbird. The opening time of the bar is the same as the time of El Rodomon, Argentina, a location exactly at the opposite point of Shanghai. At the bar, the audience can enjoy a beautiful vista of the city. Here Rehberger turns the museum space into an experimental social stage.

▲Tobias Rehberger, Forbidden in heaven, useless in hell (El Redomon version), 2019, installation view, Rockbund Art Museum

A whole round trip in the museum is nothing short of a dream. From dazzling lights to inclusive experiences, the whole exhibition gave new definition to museums. It smashed the boundary between art space inside the walls of a museum and the real world outside. It is an exhibition that everyone can enjoy. It left created something beautiful for everyone and more importantly, something that is thought provoking.