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.
