Shanghai: a megacity hungry for culture

Source:Financial Times

“The audience for art is growing very quickly here,” says Larys Frogier, director of the highly respected Rockbund Museum in Shanghai. “The younger generation is very well educated and well travelled. The new middle class wants culture, not just entertainment.” Frogier was speaking at the opening of Felix Gonzalez- Torres, a show (to December 25) of the American artist whose candy spills, glittering curtains and strings of lightbulbs are displayed across the six floors of the private museum just off the Bund, Shanghai’s waterfront district. Asked how he thought Chinese audiences would react to the conceptual nature of the works, Frogier said: “Young Chinese and Asian artists do refer to his work, and the challenge is to observe what resonance it has to Chinese audiences.”

 

This exhibition is just one of a rich calendar of events, gallery shows and inaugurations coinciding with the 11th edition of the Shanghai Biennale — entitled “Why not ask again?” — which opened on November 11 in the vast spaces of the Power Station of Art. Meanwhile across the Huangpu River in Pudong, the ambitious year-long Shanghai Project’s “Envision 2116” programme, inaugurated in September, is running in the Shanghai Himalayas Museum.

 

The art scene in the sprawling megacity has been exploding in the past few years, between openings of private and public museums and manifold cultural initiatives. According to Frogier, there are now between 15 and 20 private museums, such as Himalayas and Rockbund, in the city, most created in the past few years. And their numbers are growing, encouraged by the local government; culture is seen as “ever-growing soft power”, in the words of Gong Yan, director of the Biennale.

 

The most determined push is being made in Xuhui district, where the city fathers are racing ahead with plans for what they term the “biggest global cluster of culture” with “8.4 museum miles of waterfront” in West Bund. This area, under development on the banks of the Huangpu river, provides a refreshing contrast to the city centre’s maelstrom of saturated roads, densely packed buildings and soaring tower blocks. The district boasts jogging paths and bicycle lanes bordered by tidily staked trees and there is space around the many residential towers under construction, as well as a number of cultural centres. Already open in West Bund is the Yuz Museum, founded by collector Budi Tek, a centre for photography and a Long Museum — one of four owned by collectors Wang Wei and Liu Yiqian.

正在西岸文化艺术示范区乔空间展出的马丁·克里德在华首展

The West Bund project was launched in 2008 by local governor Sun Jiwei, and the district has already sunk some Rmb20bn (about $3bn) into it, bolstered by outside investors’ contributions. More museums are to come, some state-owned, some private, designed by international “starchitects”. Jean Nouvel has been tapped for the long-promised Star Museum, founded by collector and former Minsheng Art Museum director He Juxing; David Chipperfield is creating the state-owned West Bund Art Museum. Both are said to be opening in2018. Nearby, oil tanks are being fitted out as a future art venue by the local collector and “karaoke king” Qiao Zhibing, whose Qiao Space by the Art West Bund fair features work by Martin Creed, in partnership with Hauser & Wirth.

 

With such juicy prospects for selling art, it is small wonder that art dealers are flocking to the Shanghai fairs and setting up galleries. ShanghART opened a new space during Art West Bund, as did Edouard Malingue, already established in Hong Kong, in a space above the trendy MadeIn Gallery, created by artist Xu Zhen, which sells editions of his work.

 

This year Art West Bund, the third edition of the fair created and supported by the district, was moved from its September slot to coincide with the Biennale. This brought it into the same week as the privately owned ART021 founded by a troika of local entrepreneurs: Kelly Ying, husband David Chau (known as Zhou Dawei) and Bao Yifeng. Held in the ornate surroundings of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre, it was in its fourth edition.

 

While West Bund was small — just 31 dealers, each with 100 square metre booths, and an elegant, grown-up feel — ART021 was younger, buzzier and blingy, with a number of fashion brands lodged among the 84 booths.

 

Both events attracted some of the heaviest-hitting international art dealers, some exhibiting at both: Hauser & Wirth, Zwirner, Perrotin, along with leading Asian names such as ShanghART, Pearl Lam, Long March Space, Malingue and Leo Xu. Others had chosen just one: Gagosian, Kukje and Massimo de Carlo at ART021, White Cube, Timothy Taylor, Pace and Gladstone Gallery in West Bund. Exemplifying the differing styles of the fairs, at ART021 Perrotin had a booth dominated by gold. This included a gilded Japanese-style screen by Laurent Grasso asking €180,000 (plus a painting of a gold horse with an upside-down Buddha, in a cupboard after being removed from display by the censors) and golden wall sculptures by Michael Sailstorfer and Paola Pivi. In contrast, its West Bund booth featured an elegant black-and-white solo show based on reused cassette tapes and moulded vinyl by Gregor Hildebrandt. Half of the booth had sold by the third day, at prices between €11,000 and €26,000. Back at ART021 Krinzinger had more gold — a display of 150 cups, chopsticks and spoons on gilded mirrored shelves, courtesy of Zhang Ding, each cup priced at $500. Do the math! For a more minimalist take, first-time exhibitor Kukje from Seoul concentrated on the Dansaekhwa School, and among its sales was Lee Ufan’s “Dialogue” (2015), tagged at $275,000. West Bund opened the day after the US presidential election, and according to Pearl Lam: “Trump certainly had an effect. Beforehand everyone was checking their phones, news feeds and social media waiting for the result and for those who didn’t support Trump, there was shock and disappointment when it finally came. People were nervous; two collectors pulled out of deals following the result.” Nevertheless, sales did seem buoyant at bothlocations, and this despite local rumours of bad feng shui at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre.

 

Tim Taylor, on his first outing to West Bund, was showing Alex Katz on his booth and in a nearby temporary building. “I like the scale and ambition of this fair,” he said. “It’s select and small, but well done.” Sales included four paintings by Armen Eloyan, a Sean Scully and four Katz works, including “Double White Band (Vivien)” (2013). David Zwirner — which is opening in Hong Kong next autumn — made a “big commitment” to Shanghai, notably bringing three pieces by Donald Judd from the Foundation (priced around $800,000) and three works by Oscar Murillo, one of which sold in West Bund on the opening day (about $320,000). Ota Fine Art featured Yayoi Kusama and a large “Woman” (2016) found a buyer at $750,000 on the first day. Hauser said it saw “a strong trend in sales of major paintings”, citing numerous deals including Rashid Johnson ($175,000), Bharti Kher (€140,000) and three Fausto Melotti works (up to €400,000 each).

 

With a population of more than 24m — predicted to hit50m by 2050 — Shanghai boasts 50 billionaires, including Wang Wei and Liu Yiqian, who famously paid $170.4m for a Modigliani nude last year. This is just one sign of a shift of buying by Chinese collectors, whether as deep-pocketed as Liu or with more modest budgets. Their focus seems to be moving towards international artists, rather than Chinese names, one reason why western dealers are increasingly looking, and going, east. As Gérard Faggionato, director at David Zwirner, said, being present in China and Shanghai is now inescapable. “There’s no alternative: you simply have to be here

today.”

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