The Maison explores colour, craftsmanship and cultural exchange through more than 300 jewels, heritage pieces and contemporary artworks.
Bvlgari Kaleidos: Colors, Cultures and Crafts has arrived in Shanghai, bringing more than 300 High Jewellery creations, heritage pieces, private loans and contemporary artworks to the Power Station of Art. The latest chapter of Bvlgari’s travelling exhibition explores the Maison’s century-long relationship with colour while placing its Roman jewellery heritage in dialogue with Chinese culture, philosophy and contemporary art.
First presented in Tokyo in 2025, Kaleidos has been reimagined for Shanghai around three themes: The Science of Colours, Colour Symbolism and The Power of Light. The exhibition also incorporates the traditional Chinese philosophy of the Five Elements and Five Colours, creating a cross-cultural exploration of colour through jewellery, craftsmanship, installation art and immersive design.
The exhibition design was conceived by Japanese architecture studio SANAA and design studio Formafantasma. The spaces move away from the conventions of a traditional jewellery display. Formafantasma’s vitrines combine industrial structures with coloured marble tiers in shades of red, green and yellow, while the wider environment encourages visitors to experience colour through changing surfaces, reflections and light.
The jewels themselves trace the evolution of Bvlgari’s chromatic confidence. From the post-war period onwards, the Maison increasingly paired yellow gold with richly coloured cabochon gemstones and expanded its palette beyond the traditional ruby, sapphire and emerald to embrace turquoise, amethyst, citrine and other stones chosen as much for their colour as their rarity.
A 1957 necklace and earrings set pairs rich rubies with rounded turquoise, capturing this increasingly audacious approach. By the 1970s, the vocabulary had become even more expressive. A 1973 gold sautoir, shown publicly in Shanghai for the first time, combines coral, onyx and diamonds with an engraved apple-green jadeite pendant. Its materials feel particularly resonant within an exhibition centred on exchange between East and West.
Elsewhere, a 1991 bib necklace brings together emeralds, amethysts, citrines, pink tourmalines, sapphires and diamonds in a vivid composition demonstrating Bvlgari’s willingness to place precious and semi-precious stones on equal creative footing. A 1960 necklace set with deep crimson rubies introduces another cultural reading: in China, red is an auspicious colour associated with celebration and good fortune, while ruby has long held significance across both Eastern and Western jewellery traditions.
Contemporary art pushes these ideas beyond the jewel as the Maison works with Chinese creatives on exclusive installations. Artist Liang Manqi presents Boundless Synesthesia, an immersive installation in which colour moves beyond the canvas and into the surrounding environment. Known for abstract works that treat colour as both material and emotional language, Liang draws inspiration from the visual rhythms of everyday life, from architecture and city light to patterns found in nature.
Artist Zhang Ding approaches the exhibition’s final theme through The Form of Light. Golden illuminated panels are paired with transparent glass heads whose surfaces recall gemstones, exploring the relationship between light, perception and human experience. The work gives physical form to the idea that colour begins with light, extending the exhibition from jewellery craftsmanship into a broader contemplation of how we see.
That conversation continues beyond the museum at Bvlgari Hotel Shanghai, where Liang Manqi’s site-specific Portal installation greets visitors at the entrance, and a photographic narrative by Matthieu Lavanchy unfolds through the lobby. Open until October 31, Kaleidos is an exploration of how colour travels across time, materials and cultures.
