2010 ShContemporary: Shanghai's 'messiest' art show is back
A view of the main hall where DISCOVERIES: Re-Value is being held. Note the dimmed lights putting people's attention where it belongs, the art not the building.“This year we’ve recognized Stalin and Mao’s power by switching off the lights in the main hall.”
Colin Chinnery, ShContemporary’s director, holds back a laugh, looking up a the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building, now the Shanghai Exhibition Center, and home to this year’s ShContemporary exhibition. “The building is so overpowering, we don’t want to overwhelm the art.”
The value of art
For instance, the work in DISCOVERIES: Re-Value, one part of the show curated by Chinnery, comments on the art market’s effect on art itself. Here the show’s curators selected works by artists whose pieces call upon different notions of value -- value of the ordinary and the extraordinary or innovation against traditional values.
The works are meant to question how we consume art. An important yet touchy subject for a commercial exhibition held within a traditional art fair, which is basically a luxury trade show.
The show’s ability to raise this type of question is one thing that sets ShContemporary apart from other events of its kind in Shanghai. It sees itself beyond its basic commercial value.
Shanghai could be the most attractive place in for art Asia, maybe even the world, because it represents the future more than any other city.— Colin Chinnery, ShContemporary’s director
“There is a lot of comparing this fair to the Hong Kong fair … but this fair strikes me as different,” says Alexandra Munroe, Ph.D. and senior curator on Asian Art at the Guggenheim who is a guest speaker at ShContemporary, of the show’s place in the Shanghai art scene. “It feels messier, edgier, younger, and more experimental.”
Munroe sees the Re-Value show, which is the first thing viewers see when they enter the exhibition hall, as a strong signal of this theme and strength of the show.
Playing on the edge to paying the bills
Much of ShContemporary’s originality and edge comes from Chinnery’s influence on the show. Born and raised in Edinburgh, he has spent most of his life since 1979 in China, giving him a unique perspective on the development of the art scene in China.
After a stint in a Beijing avante garde rock band in the early 1990s, Chinnery founded the Ullens Center, now the nonprofit art space in China. He has spent much of the past decade curating the cutting edge of Chinese art.
The piece that Collin Chinnery, ShContemporary director, is drawn too? It’s in the Discoveries exhibition. “There's a super realistic paintings of pebbles. They have this power over you.”
Although credited for supporting China’s developing art scene, Chinnery came to realize that there is little room for the nonprofit sector in China and that the commercial sector now drives art production. Chinnery switched sides in 2009 when he signed on as director of ShContemporary.
“At heart I guess I’m still a nonprofit person. I’m a curator, and it can’t be helped that my personality is going to rub off on the art fair,” says Chinnery, filled with nervous energy at the show's soft opening.
Looking beyond the ShContemporary
More than any other event this year, ShContemporary could dethrone Beijing as the center of the Chinese art world.
Although many of China’s major artists call Beijing home, Chinnery admits that he favors the fledgling Shanghai art scene: “The art scene is smaller, less competitive, and there are less politics,” he says. “In Shanghai artists can just relax and have conversations about art, and just be artists.”
Still, challenges remain for anyone making art in China, in Beijing, Shanghai or elsewhere. “China still has some regulations from the past that need to be developed for the future if art in China really is to succeed. The Chinese art world is lagging behind when it comes to tax laws and logistics and things,” says Chinnery.
“Once that’s out of the way, Shanghai could be the most attractive place for art in Asia, maybe even the world, because it represents the future more than any other city.”
