Andy Warhol, Shara Hughes and Chinese artists Chen Wei, Nabuqi among highlights of Shanghai’s November art season, but shadow of censorship looms
- UCCA Edge’s Andy Warhol show, Shara Hughes’ solo project at Yuz Museum and the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum’s Chen Wei exhibition among season’s stand-outs
- Some galleries participating in the fairs spoke of intensified government censorship, especially of works by foreign artists
Shanghai’s November art season, centred on the massive art fairs Art021 and West Bund Art & Design, set off an annual explosion of hundreds of art events around the city last week.
The main fairs, back to full capacity despite mainland China’s continuing restrictions on overseas arrivals, reported healthy sales, albeit lacking quite the exuberance of last year’s post-lockdown editions.
There was unease caused by intensified government censorship at the fairs, according to some galleries participating, especially of works by foreign artists, and frequently involving works without clear cause for offence.
There is, however, a bit of excitement around the opening of new spaces by the M Art Foundation and Longlati Foundation, non-profits backed by private collectors, while CC Foundation moved from its premises in the city’s M50 gallery district to a new, larger locale next to Suzhou Creek, near to artist Xu Zhen’s MadeIn Gallery and UCCA Edge, the Shanghai branch of the Beijing-based institution.
The Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum project continues its series of early- and mid-career Chinese artists with a presentation of Chen Wei’s solo exhibition “Make Me Illusory” (until February 2022). Born in 1980, Chen emerged as a photographer of Hangzhou’s lively underground music scene, and maintains that mystical club sensibility in his works. This series shifts into the isolated digital spaces that we have all experienced in this pandemic era.
