New Co-Commission by Museum of Art Pudong and Tate:

Carolina Caycedo: Salute of the Whales Makes Its Global Premiere in Hall X

On the eve of the 2026 Spring Festival, February 12, the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) marks the grand opening of the contemporary art commission Carolina Caycedo: Salute of the Whales. As a significant milestone within the long-standing collaboration between MAP and Tate, this exhibition represents the global premiere of a new work specifically designed for MAP's Hall X. It is also the largest-scale work in the artist's career to date.

Modeled after two living humpback whales, "Batman" and "Aria," this monumental installation recreates the whales at life size. Their epic stories are presented in MAP's Hall X, in an immersive exhibition that merges contemporary issues such as marine ecology, ocean health, and interspecies coexistence.

Carolina Caycedo: Salute of the Whales is co-organized by the Museum of Art Pudong and Tate, and produced by Shanghai Lujiazui Development (Group) Company Limited.

Responding to Marine Ecology Through "Portraiture": Whales as Subjects in Contemporary Art

Carolina Caycedo's multidisciplinary practice spans murals, books, performances, films, photo-collages, hanging sculptures, and installations. In Salute of the Whales, the artist continues her use of portraiture to acknowledge the agency of non-human subjects. Two individual humpback whales, who migrate along the Pacific, are celebrated as individuals with names, personalities, memories spanning decades, and intertwined social bonds.

"Aria" and "Batman," are presented in MAP's Hall X—an iconic space rising 34 meters across five floors of the museum, offering multiple vantage points. Their colossal size and intricate details prompt us to rethink our interspecies relationships to whales and marine life.

Throughout their lives, these whales have been identified by scientists observing the unique markings on their tail flukes, as well as scars from barnacles, fishing nets, boats, and encounters with other whales. Caycedo renders these markings through intricate embroidery, beads, textile arrangements and detailed airbrushed paint. The traces of their survival stand in poignant contrast to the vast metal structure of the whales' bodies.

The female whale, "Aria" was born in 2022. As a calf, she lost her mother, "Fran," to a boat strike. Her grandmother, "River" was last seen in 2015 in poor condition with visible net entanglement scars. Caycedo has "tattooed" the silhouettes of her mother "Fran" and grandmother "River," to acknowledge the importance of mother-calf relationships in humpback societies. This family lineage, sewn on the skin, links individual destiny with the consequences of human activity. 

The male whale, "Batman" was first identified as a mature adult in 1988, making him at least 40 years old. This large male was once competitive, bearing scars from boats and encounters with other whales. He also carries invisible wounds: samples from his skin and blubber tissue reveal over 108 toxins. 

The whales' eyes are crafted from black obsidian, a material known for its deep reflective surface. They invite us humans to look at our reflection and consider the consequences of human activity on the oceans, and the way it disrupts natural cycles.

Hall X as an Immersive Ocean: A Sensory Experience of Sound, Light, and Breath

Caycedo has divided the space of Hall X with a map that centers the world's seas rather than the land, reversing our usual perspective. Traced with humpback whale migration routes, the wall-to-wall printed fabric becomes a surface through which the whales dive, offering the audience encounters with the whales from above and below the ocean.

Visitors can also hear a 22-minute music composition approximately matching the length of humpback whale songs, which they use to communicate with each other. The composition was made with underwater recordings, whale calls and songs, motorboat whirring, and rhythms of the Colombian Pacific coast; the music transforms Hall X into an "oceanic space" with a tangible sense of real time.

The installation's lighting transitions from midnight blue to daylight, following the whales' vertical rhythm—diving deep to feed and returning to the surface to breathe. This cycle defines the spatial rhythm of the exhibition, and highlights the critical role of whales in marine ecosystems: when whales surface to breath, they nourish phytoplankton—microscopic organisms that capture carbon and produce half the oxygen on the planet.

Materials, Collaboration, and the Extension of Public Discourse

The exhibition extends into the B1 space, where the artist collaborated with students from several Shanghai schools to complete the installation Ghost Nets. As an accompanying installation to Salute of the Whales, it primarily uses fishing nets abandoned at sea, which are among the deadliest threats to marine life.

The discarded nets were provided by the environmental organization WildAid, with student participants invited by Shanghai Roots & Shoots. Under the artist's guidance, students combined the nets with their own recycled materials to create sculptural works of varying scale that provoke reflection on the health of the ocean. Collaboration is a core aspect of Caycedo's practice and the participatory workshop opened up the museum space as a site for collective action.

Hall X: Practice in a Global Context

Since its opening, MAP has been committed to advancing global contemporary art discourse in China through high-level international cooperation. Salute of the Whales marks the second major commission project between MAP and Tate in Hall X, following El Anatsui: After the Red Moon (2024). Through the total transformation of this challenging space, the work delivers profound visual impact, while facilitating deep exploration of public issues through a contemporary art lens.

As the first female and first Latin American artist commissioned to work in Hall X, Salute of the Whales reflects MAP's commitment to diversifying its exhibition program and enriching its artistic offering with broader global perspectives.

Carolina Caycedo: Salute of the Whales opens to the public on February 12. Notably, the exhibition's first Sunday, February 15, coincides with World Whale Day—a temporal alignment that adds a meaningful footnote to this artistic journey. On the banks of the Huangpu River, MAP invites audiences to step into this underwater realm of whale song and migration. Here, visitors can reconsider the relationship between humanity and nature, and experience the intellectual power and public value of contemporary art in a global context.