1965年，俄罗斯文学批评家米哈伊尔·巴赫金出版了《拉伯雷和他的世界》，在书中通过法国作家弗朗索瓦·拉伯雷的作品，探讨了中世纪与文艺复兴时期的文化风俗。基于此前对拉伯雷与陀思妥耶夫斯基的研究，巴赫金指出，在前者所处的时代，“狂欢节”是一种特殊情境：王权及其所代表的等级秩序被暂时终止，甚至被颠覆。在巴赫金看来，“狂欢化”由此成为一种描述这种特殊社会情境的文学词汇：来自不同社会阶层的人相互混杂；所谓“得体”的行为规范被消解，取而代之的是对“怪诞”姿态与关系的崇尚；原本彼此对立的力量——如神圣与世俗——被并置在一起，形成种种“不匹配的结合”。最终，狂欢中那些被视为渎神的表演将神圣之物从高位赶下，用民间和俗世生活取而代之。
上海外滩美术馆今年的“夏之夜”以巴赫金的“狂欢化”作为方法和灵感来源。2026年7月25日，一场与“幽斯帕利斯”展览展开对话的“狂欢”将在美术馆上演。在这里，一系列工作坊将围绕制度化训练与个体能动性之间的张力、中苏背景下“个人教育”的历史遗产，以及国家为公民引入的实践活动如何被重新思考等问题展开。与此同时，一系列现场表演也将带给观众独属于夏夜的迷热快感。
白天，观众可以在"奖状工厂"为自己DIY奖状，去刻章办证小组获得一份飘渺又实在的认证；与还原剧团一起重访幼儿园中的规则；跟随艺术家何珊，重新发现制度化语言的起源。夜晚到来，在博物院广场上，Leonwill 的即兴萨克斯、NUH PEACE 的燥热电子音乐现场，以及由曼谷派对厂牌 YUMM 带来的狂欢舞池，将共同把美术馆转化为一处纵情欢庆的空间。
In 1965, the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin published Rabelais and His World, a book that examined the cultural mores of the Middle Ages and Renaissance through the work of the French writer, François Rabelais. Out of his work on Rabelais and an earlier study on Dostoevsky, Bakhtin described how “the carnival” in Rabelais’ era was a situation where royal power and its structural hierarchies were temporarily suspended and subverted. For Bakhtin, “the carnivalesque” emerged as a literary mode to describe this space of sociality, emphasizing the co-mingling of people from all social classes; the dissolution of “appropriate behaviour” to privilege “eccentric” gestures and forms of relation; the bringing together of otherwise opposite forces (i.e. the sacred and the profane) to form “misalliances”; and the performance of so-called sacrilegious acts to strip the divine of its ascendency and foreground behaviours more embodied and earthly.
Rockbund Art Museum’s 2026 Summer Night program takes Bakhtin's “carnivalesque” as both a methodology and point of inspiration. On 25 July 2026, a kind of “carnival” will be staged at the institution, in dialogue with the Youth Palace exhibition. Here, a series of workshops that query the tension between institutional training and individual agency, Chinese-Soviet legacies of personal "cultivation", and the re-thinking of certain practical activities first introduced to the Chinese by the nation state, are set alongside a program of live performances that seek to inspire and evoke feelings of ecstatic joy and pleasure.
During the day, audiences are invited to playfully subvert authority with the making of DIY certificates with Stamp, Steal, Certify; have children learn about the aesthetic and historical complexities of tea with BASAO; join the artist collective RE Theatre to revisit the disciplining rules of the kindergarten; and accompany the artist He Shan to rediscover the origins of institutional language. At night, on the museum plaza, an improvized saxophone soundscape from Leonwill, a thunderous electronic performance from NUH PEACE, and an exuberant dance floor facilitated by the Bangkok-based party YUMM transforms the institution into a space of revelry.