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Galleries flourish as art explosion makes waves in Shanghai

A Himalayan boulder in pink, a buxom pig sculpture strutting on silver hoofs in a green dress and pearls, waist-high white porcelain penguins — these and more are on offer as three major art fairs converged on China’s commercial capital.

An explosion of art auctions and galleries both large and small is turning Shanghai, China’s biggest city, into a destination for art dealers and aficionados from around the world.

Timed to capitalize on a presumed post-Olympics surge of interest, the Shanghai Biennale, the Shanghai Art Fair and SHContemporary opened almost simultaneously last week, drawing thousands of visitors both Chinese and foreign.

“I think that it’s the growing up of Shanghai as an art center,” said Uli Sigg, a former Swiss ambassador to Beijing who began collecting Chinese art in the 1970s while working in China for Schindler Elevator.

While Shanghai lags behind Beijing as a cultural center, the city now has more than 800 galleries — part of a boom that pushed sales at Chinese auctions last year to nearly 22 billion yuan (US$3.2 billion), up about 35 percent from the year before.

Some say the craze for Chinese art is fueling a “bubble” in art prices that is bound to collapse eventually. But most works on offer at the recent art fairs are priced in the tens of thousands of yuan — within the modest means of many newly affluent local collectors.

Visitors to Shanghai’s art fairs are faced with a choice of just about any genre and theme.

At the Biennale, iridescent fiberglass ants climb the red brick walls of downtown’s Shanghai Art Museum, while inside a gleaming white and silver “Flying Machine,” created from an airplane, a sedan and a tractor, more obviously reflects the fair’s theme of “translocomotion.”

Just down the road at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, 120 galleries from 20 countries are displaying works both Chinese and foreign at SHContemporary.

“We see everywhere in this world great contemporary artists and especially this continent of Asia is growing in a stunning way,” said Lorenzo Rudolf, director of the show.

Some exhibitors fretted over pieces they felt were overpriced.

“Chinese art is the flavor of the month, so people will buy at all sorts of prices,” said Peter Micic of Beijing Central Art Gallery. “But rip-offs devalue quality art.”

Sigg agreed.

“The quality of this art, the interest, is not the main factor driving the value,” he said.

He blamed the influential role of auctions and the market’s hefty appetite for “fresh flesh.”

“The average price level may not be sustainable,” Sigg said.
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