An exhibition marks the 70th anniversary of the beloved cartoon character, Zhang Kun reports. 

Snoopy, the dog from Peanuts, the comic series created by US artist Charles Schulz, has taken the spotlight of an ongoing exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Shanghai.

The exhibition started on Sept 10 and will run until Jan 4, 2021.

This is the first time that Peanuts has collaborated with an art museum to put up a large-scale exhibition since the Snoopy in Fashion exhibition in the Louvre in Paris in 1999, according to Miriam Sun, executive director of MoCA Shanghai. The exhibition also marks the seventh Animamix Biennial at the museum, which is located in People's Park in downtown Shanghai.

"In the MoCA Animamix Biennial, apart from exhibiting the works featuring classic Peanuts characters, MoCA Shanghai has also invited 20 artists and groups from China to collaborate with Peanuts and create exclusive crossover artworks for the occasion," Sun told the media on the opening day.

Starting with a scroll measuring 18 meters long and 10 meters high by Wen Na, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey that includes the First Encounter series painted by Hong Kong artist and toy designer Michael Lau, a writing class designed by Xu Min and a new media installation by Wu Jian'an titled I'm the First Beagle Landing on the Moon.

According to Sun, the exhibition attempts to eliminate the boundaries between art and animation, fashion and tradition, technology and humanity.

"The exhibition combines the virtual with reality perfectly through the most advanced AR technology, echoing the narrative theme 'what a wonderful day'," she says.

Schulz (1922-2000) began to publish his cartoon series about Snoopy and his friends in 1950, when the Peanuts comic strip debuted in seven newspapers. Schulz wrote and drew every strip from its inception to the very end on Feb 13, 2000, when the last strip ran. Schulz died of a heart attack the previous day.

Over the past 70 years, Snoopy has garnered more than 3 billion fans worldwide and become the most popular dog in the world, Sun says. The exhibition reviews classic moments of Peanuts, and illustrates its history and development.

Twenty artists from China contributed their reinterpretations of the Peanut characters, placing them in the context of today's society through paintings, sculptures, installations and AR-video projections.

Sun attributes the success of Peanuts to Schulz's ability to comment about society and the world through the point of view of children.

"Schulz created a cast of characters that we can all identify with," she says.

During the exhibition, Xin Wen, an IT worker in Shanghai, shared his long-time infatuation with Snoopy.

"Snoopy always dreams about stuff ... he dreams about being a fighter pilot, writing a great American novel, traveling to the moon and keeping a bird for a pet ... his writing was rejected by publishers over and over again, and yet he never gave up," the 35-year-old says.

"How many of us in real life can hold on to our dreams and never compromise with reality?"

Upon the cartoonist's retirement in 1999, former US president Bill Clinton wrote: "The characters Charles Schulz created are more than enduring icons. Charlie Brown, Linus, Snoopy, Pig Pen and Lucy taught us all a little more about what makes us human. Virtually every day for a half century, Charles Schulz has shown us that a comic strip can transcend its small space on the page. It can uplift; it can challenge; it can educate its readers even as it entertains us."

If you go

10 am-6 pm, Monday-Sunday, Sept 10-Jan 4, 2021. MoCA Shanghai, Building No 3 in People's Park, 231 Nanjing Road West, Huangpu district, Shanghai. 021-6327-0856.