Best art galleries in Shanghai(1)
The best locations to experience the city's fast-expanding art scene
For a city of Shanghai’s size, cultural history, and financial clout, its art scene is relatively small and uneven.
But since the industry is still developing, there is more opportunity and flexibility here than in any other similar environment.
The following is a harshly edited list of Shanghai’s best galleries. So go visit and at least pretend to look around before your Feiyues squeak towards the Great Wall Wine and cherry tomatoes table.
James Cohan Gallery Shanghai
The gate of James Cohan Gallery Shanghai. All art lovers are greeted with a banner hailing "Long live Chairman Mao" before stepping forward to purchase and perceive art.
Testifying to Shanghai’s opulent past, the most beautiful gallery in town is housed in a colonial villa in the former French Concession.
As a sister gallery of the New York branch, James Cohan Shanghai has a strong international program, showing contemporary legends, such as Louise Bourgeois, Alex Katz, Richard Long, and Roxy Paine.
In China, however, the multi-national gallery has been more interested in the younger generation -- artists like Cheng Ran, Guo Hongwei, and Hu Xiaoyuan.
Arthur Solway, director of James Cohan Shanghai, quotes famed Swiss curator Harald Szeemann’s wish that exhibitions move away from both market forces and the Victorian urge to classify culture; instead they meet somewhere in the middle, as "poems in space."
While it’s unclear if this is taking place in most of the art world, it certainly is at James Cohan Gallery Shanghai.
More on CNNGo: How to buy Chinese art for less
James Cohan Gallery Shanghai, 1/F, 1 Lane 170, Yueyang Lu, near Yongjia Lu 岳阳路170号1号楼1楼, 近永嘉路, +86 21 5466 0825, Tuesday-Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday: noon-6 p.m.; Monday by appointment, www.jamescohan.com
OV Gallery
OV Gallery is the right place to be if you're looking for outspoken, bold and cutting-edge art.
Under the direction of former magazine editor Rebecca Catching, Oriental Vista (OV) Gallery has earned respect of almost every art aficionado in town by putting on a series of conceptually strong yet accessible group shows.
Catching says that OV “tries to bring in non-art circle people by choosing provocative themes, which try to address issues in contemporary society.”
The space hosted a series of exhibitions that dealt very critically with current trends in 2010. For example, "Makeover" responded to Shanghai’s drastic gentrification and "Re-Visioning History" was an excellent critique of official CCP view of history.
This latter also got them shut down by the local culture bureau, which is more than enough reason to support.
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OV Gallery, Room 207, Building 4, 50 Moganshan Lu, near Nan Suzhouhe Lu 莫干山路50号4号楼207室, 近南苏州河路, +86 139 1637 3474, Tuesday-Sunday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m., www.ovgallery.com
Directions: From the entrance of the M50 compound, take the first door of the first building on the left. Immediately take the first set of stairs to the second floor and turn left down the first corridor, then left again.
Art Labor 2.0
Even if you are buried by DJs and bartenders, we assure you this is a gallery.
Canadian Martin Kemble’s gallery has evolved over the past five years to be one of the most spectacular places in town. His openings have become notorious for the DJs, heavy-pouring bartenders, and crowds of the hip and beautiful -- at least some of whom come to look at the art.
And the art is worth looking at.
Art Labor represents talented young Chinese artists Ying Yefu and Lu Yang, both of whom turn heads with their irreverent and biting pieces. Also on the roster are Lu Xinjian, You Si, and more.
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Art Labor 2.0, Room 411, Building 4, 570 Yongjia Lu, near Shaanxi Nan Lu 永嘉路570号4号411室, 近陕西南路, +86 21 3460 5331, Tuesday-Saturday: 11 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday: noon-6 p.m., www.artlaborgallery.com
m97 Gallery
Get overwhelmed in the photographic world at m97.
Showing big name photographers from all over the world, m97 Gallery captures the direction that photography has taken over the past 30 years.
The light-filled gallery shows huge photos in the "tableaux" form, defined by French critic Jean-Francois Chevrier as works “designed and produced for the wall, summoning a confrontational experience on the part of the spectator …”
From Nadav Kander’s elegy for the Yangtze River Valley to Michael Wolf’s cityscapes, m97 is the place to be overwhelmed by the photographic world. They’ve also put on historic exhibitions of Chinese photographers, Han Lei and Wang Ningde.
“On one hand we're trying to reflect our contemporary surroundings and predicament on any given level, " director Steven Harris comments on this role of the gallery, "on another, we're trying not to be so myopic that we lose sight of the longer-term perspective of what's valuable, relevant, irreplaceable, unforgettable.”
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m97 Gallery, 2/F, 97 Moganshan Lu, near Nan Suzhouhe Lu 莫干山路97号二楼, 近南苏州河路, +86 21 6266 1597, Tuesday-Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m., www.m97gallery.com
