Shanghai delivered so much more than I expected! My first day I spent going to galleries:
It was incredible to see how much the city had grown and changed in the seven years since my last visit. The scale of the architecture is so grand and modern; it was particularly exciting to see many new private art institutions like the Long Museum and Forsun Foundation
The city feels like it has doubled in size!
The Westbund Art Fair and the ART021 were both very different from each other, but fantastic in different ways. It was great to see the way the way that the Westbund Arts district has grown quite a bit and encompasses so many institutions and galleries. The Westbund fair featured a higher than usual percentage of international galleries than previous editions and I particularly like seeing the mix of programs from all around the world.
ART021 provided access to more emerging artists and galleries, I was happy to see a few familiar galleries from LA participating: Ghebaly Gallery and Shulamit Nazarian as well as several European galleries, such as Galerie Nächst St. Stephan. (Vienna)
In addition to the many gallery shows going on around the city, the opening of the Shanghai Bienniale happened at the end of the week. Shown in the expansive Power Station of Art building along the river, it was an incredibly diverse show centered loosely on the theme of Yubu, a mystic Chinese dance step. The four curators did an interesting job of giving each artist plenty of room to exhibit in this expansive space.
Christoph Draeger and Heidrun Holzfeind
Some other artists of interest:
