Although the artists who contributed to the Collection enjoy global renown today, this was not necessarily the case when they worked with Renault. This shows just how bold the project was. It made Renault a pioneer in corporate sponsorship rather than just another art collector.  Today, the public can enjoy viewing the Collection through exhibitions and loans, in the Ateliers Renault, as well as in the world’s greatest museums.

As a result of the unusual genesis of the Renault collection, and of the partnerships between the Group and the artists, an agreement was made by which the works made with Renault are inalienable: they cannot be sold, gifted or given away. The collection is preserved for future generations and is a part of the history of the Renault Group. 

The exhibition in China will showcase over 100 major works and span 60 years from the mid-60s to the present time, recounting, with this rich selection, the unique history of one of the main French industrial firms, the Renault Automobile company with contemporary art. 

The exhibition occupies 2 floors of the central building of the Today Art Museum. 

The first floor is devoted to the art works that explicitly show their relation with the industrial world. 

In the entrance hall, 3 imposing sculptures by cross-generation celebrated artists the Swiss Jean Tinguely and the French Jean-luc Moulène: Tinguely’s ironical “crazy” mechanical machines from the 60s and Moulène’s glossy high tech bird-car created in 2011. A car-shaped painting of Jean Dubuffet and 5 works on paper by Tinguely complete this firsts space. 

Once passed the entrance hall, the main space opens up first to paintings by contemporary masters such as American Robert Rauschenberg, Chilian Roberto Matta, Belgian Pierre Alechinsky, Icelandic-French Erro  whose works present very different painterly interpretations of the relationship between art and modern industrialized life. The young Chinese artists He An and Wen Fang along with British artist Angela Palmer offer a dynamic counterpoint to paintings with their sculptures on the floor or on the wall. In the spaces at the end one enters a world of unstable reality with vibrant and optical sculptures and paintings by Greek Takis, Argentinian Le Parc, French Arman and Venezuelan Soto. 

The second floor, accessed by the stairs leading to its middle space is logically divided in 2 sections: the entirety of the left section (facing the visitor walking up the stairs) is devoted to the historical late 20th century artist Jean Dubuffet and his fantasy world of the Hourloupe. The artist wanted to create a kind of painting that was environmental, that the viewer could physically experience. The “alternative universe” of his vast jagged-edged paintings of the “Roman Burlesque” is recreated here with 20 grand format works for the viewer to peruse in. 

The right section is devoted to varied experiences in abstraction: from Victor Vasarely’s “cinetic” vibrant geometric paintings of the 50s and70s through Turkish Arslan Sukan’s and Emirati Ebtisam Abdulaziz’s subtle minimal abstract works of 2013 about space and place, then the specific world somewhere between signs and forms of Belgian poet and painter Henri Michaux’s abstractions of 1967 to 1984 and closing with American Sam Francis’s grand abstract expressionist painting of 1980.

The center space that defines these two sections is mastered by imposing black and white figures facing each other:  the group of Dubuffet ‘s shaped paintings Three figures,  Joan Mirò’s  wash on paper “Woman, bird” of 1979 and Niki de Saint-Phalle’s White Goddess assemblage sculpture of 1963.