Final curtain for SHContemporary?

While art fairs are on the rise in Hong Kong where Art Basel Hong Kong will be joined by Art Central in 2015, Shanghai's main fair is in troubled waters. The recent edition of SHContemporary was a disaster, opening with the grand Shanghai Exhibition Centre conspicuously devoid of art. Consignments were held up in customs with many crates arriving after the last visitors had left the vernissage. And to cap it off, participating galleries were told no sales could take place within the fair as the permit obtained was one only to exhibit art.

Art fair director Guido Mologni says it is too soon to say whether SHContemporary will continue in the future, but it's hard to see the fair recovering from such a set back.
Image: SHContemporary booths in the grand hall of the Shanghai Exhibition Centre

Asian art fairs: points of difference sharpening up between the three major players

Under the new directorship of Massimo Torrigiani SH Contemporary has set its sights firmly on being the best fair on mainland China, aiming to head off its Beijing rivals. Torrigiani has also responded to comments that the fair's aspirations are well short of those mapped out by Lorenzo Rudolf when he launched the fair in 2007, saying: "The fair's conception was marred by an 'original sin' - that of imagining that it could be an outpost of international galleries in mainland China, rather than an event built on the foundations of the local scene."

With ART HK now positioned as the 'Art Basel' of the Asia-Pacific region, observers will be watching to see how the art fair scene develops in the region with art supremo Lorenzo Rudolf at the helm of Art Stage Singapore positioning Singapore as another emergent Asian art hub, and Torrigiani playing his mainland China hand.
Image: Sh Contemporary 2011

SH Contemporary 2011: all that is new in Shanghai

The 5th edition of Shanghai's international art fair gets underway tomorrow at the Shanghai Exhibition Centre. Under the new direction of Massimo Torrigiani, SH Contemporary 2011 "highlights the work of galleries that promote innovative practices and and research and nurture the creative movements that are crossing China and Asia, changing the global cultural landscape."

This year's edition includes a special projects section organised in cooperation with Arthub Asia, led by Davide Quadrio, Defne Ayas and Qiu Zhijie. It includes: First Issue, featuring Asia Pacific artists who had their first show or important presentations in 2010-2011; Hot Spots presenting monumental and site-specific works by established artists; The video Room presenting works selected by members of the LEAP magazine editorial team; and the Search project initiated by the RogueArt (Malaysia) displaying ways in which Southeast Asian art is categorised throughout literature, exhibitions, archival projects and the media.

Image: The Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for SH Contemporary 2011

Colin Chinnery moves on from ShContemporary

Colin Chinnery has moved on from ShContemporary to devote more time to his own work, but will remain involved with the fair working as an advisor. Chinnery introduced a fresh vision to Shanghai's international art fair enabling it to become a producer of ideas as well an Asian outpost of the art market. His recent fair included Discoveries: Re-Value a thematic exhibition highlighting the confrontation between different ideas of artistic and commercial value and a conference co-organised with Hou Hanru on the theme Collecting Asian Art: What, When and How?

Chinnery will be replaced by Massimo Torrigiani, co-founder and director of Boiler Corporation, a publishing company and creative agency focused on contemporary visual art and culture, which also produces the Milan and New York-based Fantom - Photographic Quarterly.

Image: Colin Chinnery

Hou Hanru conference

Contemporary art museums from around the world will participate in a conference on the issues surrounding institutional collections of Asian contemporary art this September at ShContemporary 2010. Titled Collecting Asian Contemporary Art: What, When and How?, the conference is being organised by Hou Hanru, the Chinese born curator and critic currently based in San Francisco. His latest curatorial projects include the 10th Biennale de Lyon and the 10th Instanbul Biennial.

Image: Hou Hanru, organiser of Collecting Asian Contemporary Art: What, When and How?, ShContemporary, 9 September 2010

Colin Chinnery on the future of ShContemporary

This link takes you to an interview with Colin Chinnery on the future of ShContemporary. He talks about rethinking the art fair in a post-recession climate, the emerging Chinese art market, mixing up the regional art DNA and the moves he is making with ShContemporary such as the Discoveries section featuring challenging work not necessarily suitable for the market. He says his goal is not to make ShContemporary different from other fairs, but rather to be looking at what is necessary at this point in time for an art fair in China, and to address those issues.

For instance his new Collectors Development Programme (introduced in 2009) aims to help new Chinese collectors find their way into the market without being taken advantage of. It's described as a three-step approach beginning with the "Knowledge" stage which involves classes and seminars where people are introduced to the basics of art, art history and the art market. The second step is to get them "Inspired" through contact with artists, gallerists and experienced collectors. The third step focuses on "Practice", which gives budding collectors various ways of entering the market through art fairs, galleries and auctions.

Chinnery brings a novel background to his directorship of Shanghai's international art fair. He worked as chief curator and deputy director of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art in Beijing and he is also an artist and a founding member of the artist collective Complete Art Experience Project, which includes high-profile artists such as Qiu Zhijie and Liu Wei.

The next edition of ShContemporary the Asia Pacific Art Fair takes place from 9 - 12 September 2010.

Image: Colin Chinnery, director of ShContemporary the Asia Pacific Art Fair

ShContemporary reviews

You can read reviews of ShContemporary here and here.

Images (from the top): Shanghai Exhibition Centre, Discoveries exhibition, East Wing

ShContemporary wrap up

ShContemporary closed on Sunday 13 September 09 and like many in the region we're waiting for reports to emerge on how it fared. While there is talk of the global recession bottoming out and 'green shoots' appearing, it's still a tough time to be in the art fair business.

So how did it look to us?

ShContemporary continues to position itself as the Asia/Pacific fair with its sights set on becoming an event to rival the great fairs of Europe and America. We need great fairs in our part of the world and their commitment to the region is commendable.

The new director, Colin Chinnery, tuned the 09 fair to the region giving it a stronger Asian focus. The ShContemporary website listed 75 participating galleries of which just 20 were from Europe and America. This was a clever piece of recession proofing, as the economic downturn in Asia has not been as severe as in the West. But the recession did figure large in Chinnery's mind. He says: "One of the major objectives for this year's edition was simply adjusting people's expectations, which were overblown by the exploding Chinese market before being squashed by the recession. The expectations are different now than before but they are based on solid reality. The hyper-commercial or expensive work is nowhere to be seen. There is a lot more experimental works, lots of younger work. People are going to realize that art doesn't appreciate 100 times in five years."

Chinnery also carried out a little re-inventing to give the fair "a more experimental and daring vision". This year's event included sections aimed at attracting artists, curators, galleries and collectors looking for more than a slice of the art market in play, notably the Discoveries exhibition. Curated by Mami Kataoka, Anton Vidokle and Wang Jianwei, the exhibition explored the question "What is Contemporary Art?" through the work of 24 artists from around the world selected to present their individual responses to the question. The exhibition theme was also addressed in a conference on the same subject and structured as a 4-day series of lectures and discussions (see our earlier posting here), drawing such speakers as critic Hal Foster, artist Martha Rosler and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. The contents of the conference are to be published in e-flux journal.

The fair also included a new initiative - The Collectors Development Programme - aimed at potential and emerging collectors. This will be of interest to artists and galleries around the world monitoring reports about the new-generation Chinese collectors who are said to be more interested in contemporary art than antiquities. "Very positive sales" were reported, but aside from a few examples, no details have been released so far.

And what of the future? ShContemporary has seen some changes during its short lifetime. Pierre Huber and Zhou Tiehai, two founders of the fair, left after the first edition on 2007. Co-founder and art impresario Lorenzo Rudolf took up the reins, but left after the second edition in 2008. Only time will tell whether Colin Chinnery can fully realise the potential of ShContemporary, but he appears to be off to a good start.

Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for ShContemporary

ShContemporary sampler

ShContemporary sampler

ShContemporary sampler

Once again (we had the same problem in 2008) it has not been easy to email images from Shanghi. But at last our roving reporter has managed to get some images to us from ShContemporary 09. 

The new face of ShContemporary

Colin Chinnery is the new director of ShContemporary, replacing Lorenzo Rudolf who departed after the 2008 edition of the fair. A Beijing-based artist/curator/writer, Chinnery has a reputation for bringing contemporary culture to a broader Chinese audience. He has curated such shows as Sound and the City, China's first major sound art project, and Aftershock, a survey of British art also presented in China. He was previously chief curator and deputy director at the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, Beijing. 

ShContemporary: a new initiative

This year, ShContemporary has created a specialised team whose purpose is to engage with emerging collectors in China and create fresh networking opportunities through The Collectors Development Programme (CDP). Through their partners, who represent China's fast emerging affluent sector of society, ShContemporary is reaching out to potential and emerging collectors.

Fair director Colin Chinnery says: "We have resources far larger than those of individual galleries or independent advisors, and we are putting these resources to use all year round instead of just the few days during the annual fair, to create a platform that can really make a long-term difference in the Chinese contemporary art market."

The CDP was launched at ShContemporary on 10 September with a gala dinner attended by nearly 300 collectors, the fair's CDP partners and all of the exhibiting galleries.

Image from the ShContemporary website: Insane Park, Louis Vuitton, courtesy Godo Gallery

ShContemporary: Discoveries

The current edition of ShContemporary includes Discoveries, an exhibition curated by Anton Vidokle, Mami Kataoka and Wang Jianwei. You can read a short interview between ShContemporary director Colin Chinnery and the curators here. The fair also includes Platform, a section for galleries presenting emerging artists.

Image from the ShContemporary website: Xiang Qinhua, Sex Scandal, courtesy Author Gallery, Platform section of ShContemporary 09

ShContemporary underway in Shanghai

Over the next few days we'll be posting reports and images from ShContemporary, which opened last night in the Shanghai Exhibition Centre. It'll be interesting to see how it plays out in the current economic climate. While there's talk of the global recession bottoming out and 'green shoots' appearing, it's still a tough time to be in the art fair business.

Images: Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for ShContemporary

ShContemporary

We are in Shanghai this week visiting ShContemporary. From Wednesday we'll be posting reports and images from the fair, which runs from 10 - 13 September 09 with the Vernissage on the 9th.

Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre, venue for ShContemporary

What is Contemporary Art?

Art fairs on our side of the world are engaged in a tussle to become the Art Basel of Asia. We're less interested in whether there is a clear winner - we hope several emerge in the Asia/Pacific region with the potential to rival the great fairs of Europe - than the moves they make to raise the stakes. 

What is Contemporary Art? is the subject of a conference organised by Anton Vidokle for ShContemporary09. The conference will be structured as a four-day series of short lectures and contents will be published in e-flux journal. The lineup of speakers includes: Hu Fang, Hal Foster, Boris Groys, Jeorg Heiser, Raqs Media Collective, Carol Yinghua Lu, Cuauhtemoc Medina, Hans Ulrich Obrist, Martha Rosler, Gao Shiming and Jan Verwoert. The lecture series takes place as part of the special section Discoveries, an exhibition curated by Wang Jianwei and Mami Katoka that includes artists such as Marina Abramovic, Heman Chong, Joseph Kosuth, Susan Norrie, Shinji Ohmaki, Martha Rosler, Anri Sala, Fiona Tan, Xu Zhen and others. The conference programme description and schedule is published here.

Image: Shanghai Exhibition Centre and venue for ShContemporary09

China watch

As reports circulate on the Internet about the emerging, new-generation Chinese collectors more interested in contemporary art than antiquities, it's interesting to see how art fairs in the region are positioning themselves in relation to this development. ART HK worked Hong Kong's history as the financial hub of Asia and gateway to modern China, presenting the 09 event in the Oltmanns designed Convention and Exhibition Centre on Victoria Harbour. Despite the gloomy international backdrop of a global recession combined with a Swine flu pandemic, the fair was a success featuring heavy-hitter galleries (Gagosian, Kukje, Lisson, White Cube and others), attracting 28,000 visitors and delivering on its pre-fair promise to access Chinese collectors from the mainland as well as Hong Kong. Big-ticket sales of USD1m+ were achieved with galleries also reporting strong sales for more accessibly priced works. ART HK says it is in the process of emerging as one of the key international platforms for contemporary art.

Next on the calendar is ShContemporary. The fair will be staged once again in the historic Exhibition Centre playing up Shanghai's history as the Paris of the East as well as its current position as a global super city. The messaging out of Shanghai focuses on: the emerging collectors in the region; Asia is the future; and an art fair with a fresh vision. They say: "This year ShContemporary returns with a new artistic director and initiatives to engage with emerging collectors from the region. A unique curatorial team consisting of Wang Jianwei, Mami Kataoka and Anton Vidokle is working with Fair Director Colin Chinnery to give SHContemporary an experimental and daring art vision." Clearly SHContemporary also has its sights set on becoming the first truly international art fair to emerge in the Asia/Pacific region.

Images: Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre and Shanghai Exhibition Centre