Even if you're not a Bob Dylan fan, it's hard to avoid the creator of an era, who is also a bard, a rebel and a critic, a man who won a Nobel Prize in Literature as a musician, and also a painter.

At the first retrospective exhibition of Bob Dylan's visual artworks – Retrospectrum at the Modern Art Museum (MAM) in Shanghai, visitors who see his visual art from paintings, hand written song texts to iron works, will realize that his entire world is a long poem.

The exhibition provides visitors with a very rare opportunity to experience Dylan's journey with more than 250 artworks spanning 40 years of the worldwide culture icon.

"Seeing many of my works years after I completed them is a fascinating experience.  I don't really associate them with any particular time or place or state of mind, but view them as part of a long arc; a continuum that begins with the way I go forth in the world and changes direction as my perception is shaped and altered by life. I can be as profoundly influenced by events in Morretes, Brazil as I am by the man who sells me El País in Madrid”Bob Dylan said to media, adding that "Shanghai is a city so rich in culture and history, and I couldn't be happier that Retrospectrum is being exhibited there," he added.

Among these artworks are some of his earliest ink sketches published in 1973 which complied Dylan's lyrics up until that time. Alongside those sketches are some of Dylan's most renowned song text including the famed "Blowin' In the Wind."

Dylan's poetry and lyrics have fascinated fans worldwide, provoking debates over the meaning, and also earning him a Nobel Prize in Literature "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition," according to the Swedish academy.

Iconic Train Tracks paintings are also featured here, including the "Drawn Blank Series" that first brought attention to Dylan's paintings. There many other paintings that are inspired by his own travels, and among them, the famous "The Beaten Path" has attracted many visitors to take photos.

Growing up in an area known as the 'Iron Range,' Dylan was surrounded by industrial sites during his childhood. Those iron works made by him are also featured here.

The tools of the past now adorn gates, screens, furniture and wall hangings. With their re-purposed parts given a new function, the Ironworks retain both the rawness and the history of their origins.

The exhibition runs from September 2019 until January 5, 2020.