With a thriving museum and gallery scene, China’s largest city is proving a lively alternative to Beijing

By Simon Rowe Translation by Sally Chang

While art in Shanghai is often overlooked or dismissed in comparison to the better-known Beijing scene, the city’s comparatively compact scale makes it more intimate and digestible. Shanghai artists mostly veer away from the large-scale, paintings, performance and political pop that are Beijing’s signature, instead specialising in photography, video and installation art, with themes of personal examination and the fluxes of urban identity.

Located in an upscale area of Pudong, Zendai MoMA (28 Lane 199, Fangdian Road, +86 21 5033 9801) is one of only a handful of private art museums in Shanghai. Through a packed schedule of community outreach and educational programmes, it aims to get ordinary urbanites interested in art. “Zendai is approaching art with that rootedness with people,” says Huangfu Binghui, deputy director of the museum. “Shanghai hasn’t got that habit of looking down on ordinary people.”


MoCA exterior

Although Shanghai has a reputation as a commercial city, according to Karen Hung, owner of the new White Factory Gallery (1/F, Building 11, 696 Weihai Lu, +86 131 6622 3442), the city’s contemporary art circles are much less preoccupied with auction prices and prestige than Beijing or Hong Kong. “I think compared to Beijing, Shanghai is ideal as an experimental ground for newer and more innovative art practices, for cultivating younger generations of artists and attracting the interest of new generations of buyers and collectors,” says Hung.


Works by Liu Jianhua at the Shanghai Gallery of Art

Since 1996, the state-run Shanghai Art Museum (325 Nanjing Road (W), +86 21 6327 2829) has hosted the Shanghai Biennale every other autumn, which in 2000 graduated into a high-profile international event. Meanwhile, the ShContemporary art fair (Shanghai Exhibition Centre, 1000 Yan An Road (M), +86 21 6279 0279), which was launched last year, has ambitions of becoming a leading commercial platform for contemporary Asian art.


Zendai MoMA

These two events bracket the often much more exciting events staged by shanghai’s art institutions every fall. The city’s galleries and museums wheel out their best artists and curators for the benefit of the visiting international art world elite. The general public can also avail themselves of a heady line-up of shows and schedule of events from september through november. The privately-owned shanghai Museum of Contemporary art (People’s Park, 231 nanjing Road (W), +86 21 6327 1282) hosts its own, more conceptual biennale concurrent with the official one, with scores of satellite and underground shows providing sterling accompaniment.


ShContemporary art fair

However, shanghai also has plenty on offer the rest of the year. Most galleries stock the free shanghai art Map with a monthly schedule of shows, complete with directions. The bulk of shanghai’s art spaces are located in one of several clusters around the city, of which “M50 is the most concentrated of all,” says Defne ayas, a shanghai-based curatorial consultant. M50, located at 50 Moganshan Lu, is a compound of converted old warehouses next to suzhou Creek in northern shanghai and houses dozens of galleries and artists’ studios. “shanghart is the most productive with its two spaces there and multiple exhibitions throughout the year, as is Bizart, which acts as the playground for Chinese artists’ experiments,” says ayas.


ShContemporary art fair

Founded in 1998 by a group of Chinese and European artists and curators, the non-profit Bizart is veteran groundbreaker of the shanghai art scene. “They form the backbone of the contemporary art scene here in shanghai, in terms of reflecting new ideas and the art of today.” also notable at M50 are Epsite, another photography space, and conceptual gallery Eastlink. several other respected galleries are located near to the M50 compound and along suzhou Creek, including M97, which also focuses on photography, and Creek art.


Michael Wolf’s The Real Toy Story from MoCA

While M50 contains most of the big-name galleries and artists’ studios, a warren of former opium warehouses downtown at 696 Weihai Lu has now become a nest for lesser-known emerging artists and galleries, such as Hung’s White Factory. another cluster in the far north university district of Wujiaochang features a handful of galleries including another outpost of shanghart as well as studio space that is more affordable to younger artists. at the opposite end of the spectrum are the stunning spaces on the Bund, where lush galleries compliment the luxury shopping and dining offerings of shanghai’s most prestigious address. The non-profit Bund 18 Creative space, administered by Korean curator sunhee Kim, stages breathtaking exhibitions with a focus on pan-asian art. shanghai Gallery of art, at Three on the Bund, is one of the most professional commercial galleries in the country and showcases mostly contemporary Chinese artists. additionally, the former French Concession has a handful of impressive venues, particularly the newly opened shanghai branch of new York’s James Cohan Gallery, located in a gorgeous old villa and exhibiting big- name international artists.


Yinka Shonibare’s The Age of Enlightenment from James Cohan Gallery Shanghai

shanghai’s museum scene is dominated by shanghai MoCa and Zendai MoMa, both sponsored by private entrepreneurs and staging shows of impressive quality and scale. The shanghai art Museum, owned by the city government, hosts a range of artistic styles, while the Duolun Museum (27 Duolun Road, +86 21 6587 2530), under the auspices of the Hongkou District Government, offers more variety in quality than in genre. The impressively hanger-like shanghai sculpture space on Huaihai Xi Lu, is another government-backed venue with mixed offerings. some spaces, such as Creek art and the Ke art Center in western shanghai, are trying to navigate an awkward territory in between being non- profit museums and commercial galleries. However, if anywhere is suited to developing new management models and artistic styles – it’s the wild, sometimes wacky, and constantly evolving world that is shanghai art.


Lonnie Van Brummelen & Siebren De Haan’s Monument of Sugar
from the Shanghai Biennale