SHANGHAI, May 21, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- On May 17, 2026, global lifestyle brand MINISO officially opened its world-first MINISO Gallery at the Bund City Hall Plaza in Shanghai, launching with its opening exhibition featuring MINISO‑signed Indonesian artist Ryo Laksamana, known as RYOL. MINISO Gallery is a new top-tier art exhibition space open to creators worldwide, providing an independent platform for IP‑driven artistic expression.
MINISO Gallery‘s Opening Exhibition: Life from the Corner of my Room by Artist RYOL
MINISO Gallery Opened at the Bund City Hall Plaza in Shanghai
The MINISO Gallery in Shanghai
MINISO Gallery in Shanghai, part of the opening exhibition by Indonesian artist RYOL
As MINISO's global retail network expands, its IP portfolio now reaches consumers across over 100 countries and regions, supported by more than 8,000 stores worldwide in key cities including New York, Paris, London, and Dubai. While this network provides extensive consumer reach, deeper content and artistic expression remains essential for long‑term IP value. In response, MINISO introduces MINISO Gallery to provide structured support for emerging artists worldwide through long‑term, platform‑based collaboration.
Opening with International Artist Exhibition in a Cultural Landmark Location
Located in the heart of the Shanghai Bund, the Gallery occupies the Bund City Hall Plaza at 201 Hankou Road, a historic building recognized as an urban landmark with public cultural significance. Just a ten-minute walk from the world's first MINISO LAND, the site sits within a high traffic, culturally influential urban area, bridging public cultural space and contemporary art.
For its opening exhibition, MINISO Gallery opens with a solo exhibition by its first Global Exclusive Artist RYOL, an emerging Indonesian contemporary artist active on the international stage. Titled Life from the Corner of My Room, the exhibition will run from May 17 to August 31, presenting a selection of the artist's recent paintings, sculptures and installations that trace the artist's development from intimate, room-based creations to works exploring the interplay between childhood innocence and real-world experience.
RYOL is known for a visual language centered on wide eyed, doll-like figures. His work blends pop surrealism with anime inspired illustration, employing vivid colors and subtly surreal imagery to reflect on reality, social themes, and emotional states. In recent years, his works have been exhibited widely across multiple international contexts, establishing him as a rising voice within contemporary art. With a highly recognizable visual style and strong emotional accessibility, RYOL's work resonates with MINISO's emphasis on intuitive and expressive IPs that are able to connect with broad audiences across markets and culture.
Building Toward a World‑Class IP Operation Platform
As a leading IP operation platform, MINISO operates a dual strategy combining licensed IPs and proprietary IPs. Since 2025, the company has accelerated the incubation and long‑term operation of its own IP portfolio, introducing popular characters such as YOYO and Kumaru, while strengthening early‑stage IP creation through long‑term artist partnerships and initiatives such as the IP Genius Program. In parallel, MINISO has expanded its IP ecosystem through diversified cultural and consumer experiences, including immersive IP spaces such as MINISO LAND and MINISO FRIENDS store formats, as well as artist signings and offline experiential events, creating physical environments that support original IP incubation, audience engagement, and long-term cultural development.
As part of MINISO's broader IP strategy, MINISO Gallery serves as an upstream platform for cultural IP development, providing structured support for artist‑led creation across academic curations, global exhibitions, and value realization, beyond traditional retail formats.
At the opening ceremony, Ye Guofu, Founder and CEO of MINISO, said: "MINISO Gallery is not just a gallery, but a platform for emerging artists to reach a global audience. Building on our experience in bringing global IP to consumers, we aim to connect creators worldwide and enable more original and compelling works to be seen, appreciated, and scaled commercially. Shanghai is only the first stop — MINISO Gallery will evolve into a dynamic ecosystem that supports emerging artists' growth and fosters the interplay between artistic creation and value." MINISO plans to expand MINISO Gallery to more major art hubs, including Shanghai, Hong Kong, Beijing, Tokyo, Paris and New York.
With RYOL's exhibition as a starting point, MINISO Gallery will continue to explore long-term, open forms of collaboration between diverse artists and IPs worldwide, as it advances towards becoming a leading global IP operation platform.
About MINISO
MINISO Group is a global lifestyle brand offering a variety of design-led lifestyle products. The Company serves consumers primarily through its large network of MINISO stores, and promotes a relaxing, treasure-hunting and engaging shopping experience full of delightful surprises that appeals to all demographics. Aesthetically pleasing design, quality and affordability are at the core of every product in MINISO's wide product portfolio, and the Company continually and frequently rolls out products with these qualities. Since the opening of its first store in China in 2013, the Company has built its flagship brand "MINISO" as a globally recognized retail brand and established a massive store network worldwide.
About RYOL
Ryo Laksamana (RYOL) is a pioneering Indonesian contemporary artist and a graduate of the prestigious ISI Yogyakarta. His artistic journey is rooted in a childhood memory of exchanging letters filled with cartoon doodles with his mother, a narrative now deeply influenced by the "Sunday morning cartoons" of the 2000s. Through his signature wide-eyed figures, RYOL constructs a Pop-Surrealist bridge between childhood innocence and adult complexity, offering incisive reflections on consumer culture, social judgment, and the collective anxiety of a globalized youth.
RYOL's international presence is marked by solo exhibitions at Thinkspace (Los Angeles), Galerie Zberro (Paris), and Neptune Gallery (Taipei), alongside frequent features at premier art fairs such as Art021 Shanghai, Art Jakarta, and Art Central Hong Kong. By elevating juvenile media—like crayons and spray paint—into high art contexts, he employs a "decentralized" deconstruction to challenge traditional concepts of originality, solidifying his role as an active vanguard in the global contemporary art scene.
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