When ShanghArt Gallery opened its doors in Shanghai in 1996, it was one of the first contemporary art galleries in China. Today, the gallery operates from two spaces in the city (West Bund and Putuo District), with additional locations in Beijing and Singapore.
Read MoreCommitted to furthering the practice of contemporary art both at home and abroad, ShanghART Gallery encourages dialogue and research through its vast library at ShanghART West Bund and ShanghART Videotheque, a collection of nearly 600 contemporary video works that was founded in 2008.
ShanghART Gallery represents contemporary Chinese and Chinese-born artists across generations. Senior artists include David Diao, a New York based painter recognised for his abstract works; Geng Jianyi, a pioneer of the 85 New Wave Movement—an avantgarde art movement that swept across China between 1985 and 1989, with a drive for new themes, media, and subject matter; and key players of Political Pop—which emerged in the 1990s and gained attention for combining western pop art with Chinese traditional iconography as a way of extending social critique—such as Li Shan, Wang Guangyi, and Yu Youhan.
Many of the younger Chinese artists represented by ShanghART Gallery work with the photographic or video medium, among them Toronto-based Liang Yue, who employs easily accessible materials; Yang Fudong, renowned for his dreamlike, often fragmented films that explore the social-political conditions of contemporary China; and Sun Xun, whose animated films—consisting of hand-drawn monochrome ink paintings and drawings—engage with alternative narratives.
Among the international artists on the gallery roster are the Indonesian-born Melati Suryodarmo, whose research of the body manifests as photography, performance, and video; Thai artist Apichatpong Weerasethakul, whose films explore personal and collective memories; and Arin Rungjang, also hailing from Thailand, who often works with video and installation to consider unknown histories and the relationship between personal and public recollections of the past.
An active player at international art fairs, ShanghART Gallery participates in ART021 Shanghai; The Armory Show; Art Basel; Art Basel Hong Kong; Art Taipei; Art Yangtze; Photofairs Shanghai; and West Bund Art & Design, among others.
Ocula News Chinese Art World Begins Tentative Return After COVID-19 Peak Beijing, 3 April 2020 Art galleries and museums have made careful moves towards resuming normal operations following what is reportedly the worst of the COVID-19 epidemic in China.
Ocula News Art Basel Launches Online Showrooms After Cancelling HK Show Hong Kong, 21 February 2020 With tens of millions in China confined to their homes, galleries and institutions have likewise pivoted to online events.
Ocula Feature Singapore Lowdown: Shows to See By Tessa Moldan, Singapore Singapore Art Week returns from 11 to 19 January 2020 with a host of island-wide events, at the centre of which is the second edition of S.E.A. Focus (16–19 January 2020) at Gillman Barracks, showcasing the best of contemporary art in Southeast Asia.
Ocula Insight Zhang Ding’s High-Speed Forms at OCAT Shanghai By Sam Gaskin, Shanghai Modified mobility scooters steer viewers down a simulated highway in High-Speed Forms, Zhang Ding 's solo show at the new OCAT Shanghai in Sunken Garden, a short walk from its previous location north of Suzhou Creek (19 October 2019–8 March 2020). Sat in self-driving chairs, which make turns by reading reflective stickers on the ground, visitors...
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Related Press Artes Mundi 8: Filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul wins £40,000 prize 24 January 2019, BBC News Indie Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul has won the £40,000 Artes Mundi contemporary art prize. The judges said his film Invisibility was 'a powerful weapon in these turbulent times'. The 48-year-old gave a UK premiere to his dream-like work, projected over two screens and showing two figures rising from their beds in separate rooms....
Related Press The man with the exploding head: the director inspired by his medical condition 24 October 2018, The Guardian Apichatpong Weerasethakul's house in northern Thailand is a luscious jungle paradise full of polished concrete and teak, palm trees and bamboo. Even the air smells zen. The house's three gatekeepers, Dracula, King Kong and Vampire, do little to disturb the peace. They are pugs – named because Weerasethakul loves horror movies – who have a...
Related Press Melati Suryodarmo: Timoribus at Shanghart, Singapore 4 July 2018, ArtReview Asia Melati Suryodarmo's greatest asset is her Javanese dance- and butoh-trained body, the limits of which she explores in durational performances. The latter range from full-sprint displays of power (as in her best-known work, Exegie - Butter Dance, 2000, in which she dances and skids on blocks of butter), to periods of deep meditative surrender (in...
Related Video & Audio Zeng Fanzhi: From Hand to Mind 16 May 2015, Nowness The search for identity in socially and politically evolving China characterizes Zeng Fanzhi's work. Often compared to the German Expressionists, his vivid brushstrokes have made him the most high-valued Asian artist working today ( The Last Supper, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's 15th-century mural of the same name, sold for $23.3 million at a...
