{"id":8210,"date":"2021-07-26T07:00:34","date_gmt":"2021-07-26T07:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/?p=8210"},"modified":"2025-04-23T09:51:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T09:51:11","slug":"can-shanghai-art-market-thrive-despite-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focus.cbbc.org\/can-shanghai-art-market-thrive-despite-censorship\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Shanghai’s art market thrive despite censorship?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can Shanghai’s vibrant art market coexist with state control, and how does a top-down emphasis on art and design support or contradict city\u2019s desire to be an international finance centre?<\/span> Paul French speaks to author Jenny Lin to find out<\/h2>\n

Jenny Lin lived in Shanghai<\/a> for many years and is now Associate Professor of Critical Studies at the University of Southern California. Her recent book \u201cAbove Sea: Contemporary Art, Urban Culture and the Fashioning of Global Shanghai\u201d (Manchester University Press) takes a deep dive into the notion of Shanghai as China\u2019s \u201ccapital of cool\u201d, and its promotion of contemporary art and design.<\/span><\/p>\n

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In Above Sea<\/i> you describe the explosion of galleries, museums and art districts in Shanghai in the 1990s. It certainly was a vibrant time, but how would you describe the art scene in the city now? To an outsider, it seems to be focused on formal museums now rather than perhaps more ad-hoc art districts and independent galleries?<\/span><\/h4>\n

The contemporary art scene in Shanghai continues to boom. Do<\/span>z<\/span>ens of new museums and galleries have opened in recent years, including the gargantuan China Art Palace and Power Station of Art, which is now host to the ongoing Shanghai Biennial. The government has ramped up investments in Shanghai\u2019s art and culture industries, most noticeably with projects along the Huangpu Riverfront, such as Shanghai Urban Space Art Season, a bi-annual public art exhibition featuring large-scale works by local and international artists. <\/span><\/p>\n

As you note, Shanghai\u2019s most visible recent art developments tend to be formal, such as government-backed museums and city-sponsored exhibitions. However, less overtly official art endeavours still flourish in private museums like the Rockbund Art Museum, commercial galleries and artist-run initiatives like Xu <\/span>Z<\/span>hen\u2019s MadeIn Gallery, publications and websites like Art-Ba-Ba, underground clubs and festivals, and also in Shanghai\u2019s cutting-edge art schools and institutes.<\/span><\/p>\n

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The height of art \u2018retailing\u2019 seems to have been in the earlier 2000s. What is the health, or otherwise, of the art sale market in Shanghai now?<\/span><\/h4>\n

Art collectors, many from outside mainland China, had voracious appetites for contemporary Chinese art, especially from Beijing and Shanghai, in the early 2000s. During these years, the Shanghai Art Fair became a major destination within the international art market, and arts professionals around the world began touting Shanghai as a hot cultural capital. At the same time, high-end retailers<\/a> like Christian Dior sponsored exhibitions and commissioned works by Shanghai-based artists, hoping to tap into this new-found excitement for the city\u2019s art amongst foreign shoppers, while preparing for Shanghai\u2019s expected emergence as a centre of luxury goods<\/a> consumption. <\/span><\/p>\n

Fast-forward to today, and Shanghai has indeed become a hotbed of high-end retail and art development. These days, we see more local (i.e., Chinese and Shanghainese) investment driving the city\u2019s continuously strong art market. The Long Museum, founded by famed Shanghai-born billionaire and art collector Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei, marks a striking example of this increasingly localised art investment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n