Title: “Light Streams” Review
Publication: Artforum Online
Date: Oct 2009
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Tokyo
“Light Streams”
CENTER FOR COSMIC WONDER
5-18-10 Minamiaoyama, Minato-ku
September 4–November 7, 2009

Since its debut in 2000, Cosmic Wonder has carved out a special place in the expansive gray area between art and fashion. Founded by architect-turned-artist Yukinori Maeda (who maintains a separate art practice under his own name), the project has two dedicated spaces in Tokyo and Osaka that serve as hybrid gallery-boutiques. Both present seasonal “collections” that are amalgams of clothing, art installations, and publications.

The entry corridor at “Light Streams,” the current exhibition in the Tokyo center, features a video shot in a Parisian gallery, in which beautiful models dressed in Cosmic Wonder wares “perform” as art viewers with subtly eccentric choreography. In the minimal main space, a few pieces of clothing are displayed on sculptural racks. (The rest are hidden behind the white wall panels or inside a mirrored cube.) The same garments, such as a gold lamé circle dress and a retro prairie shirt, also appear in the photographs that line the walls, captured in the slightly dated antifashion pictorial style popularized by Purple magazine. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, all the photographers are Purple alumni.)

While Henry Roy captures a gold-circle-clad man and woman trekking through a sun-dappled field, Takashi Homma disconnects the clothing from human usage and lays it out in a snowy forest like otherworldly debris. Laetitia Benat’s pictures aspire to portraiture of the apparel (not the girl in it), and Mark Borthwick applies his trademark sun flare to some half nudes in a garden. These works are most interesting when viewed as an extension of the Cosmic Wonder project, which itself is intriguing mostly for its unique definition of branding and endlessly reflexive dialogue between art and commerce. The photos, zines, and installations serve to sell the clothes, while the clothes further propagate the aesthetic of the photos, zines, and installations. Through it all, Cosmic Wonder’s guileless position seems quite simple––chasing the joys of lying down in a sun-dappled forest clearing in a gold lamé dress.

Title: “’Pawnshop’ at The Shop, Beijing”
Publication: Housevibe, the Opposite House Blog
Date: Sep 2009
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What is a piece of art worth? Is it based on age? The value of the materials used? The reputation of the artist? Or something far more mysterious? In these recent years that have seen the art market in China and elsewhere bubble up and then burst, the timeless debate seems more relevant than ever. The new exhibition “Pawnshop” in Beijing is the perfect place to consider this question, with a playful twist.

This month, Vitamin Creative Space’s experimental art-space in Jianwai Soho has transformed into a “Pawnshop” for artists. Underneath a beaming neon sign, the normally open-plan gallery now has a wooden shop-front and glass cases with items by over 60 international artists on display. Some are clearly “art works,” others simple “objects” that demand we look closer and understand their significance in this new context. All were “pawned” by the artists in the traditional manner: they exchanged their pieces for cash ($99 RMB) and a claim ticket. If the artist chooses to reclaim their object within 30 days, they need to pay back the loan with interest. If not, the piece will go on sale to the public.

Whereas a real pawnshop just wants to turn a profit, “Pawnshop”’s goals are more complex. (And all profits of this project will go to charity, by the way.) By adopting this commercial framework, the organizers hope to start a dialogue about the nature of art, exchange, consumption, and money itself.

“Pawnshop” is the brainchild of e-flux founders Anton Vidokle and Julieta Aranda, New York artists and curators who successfully launched the experiment in a Lower East Side shopfront last year. Now transplanted to China, this new edition features more artists from Beijing and greater China alongside an edgy selection of emerging and established international names.

Some objects on offer are highly conceptual: New York-based artist Rene Gabri has pawned one hour of his time (represented by a small slip of paper, with the words “One hour of my time”). Others are humorous – Beijing’s own Cao Fei exchanged a cockroach trap entitled “Cockroach House from Cao Fei’s House.” Singapore’s Ming Wong contributes a vintage Chinese opera record, and Hong Kong’s Doris Wong Wai-Yin a 1960s pocketbook; each investigating the link between object and memory. The legendary Martha Rosler, American pioneer of both feminist and conceptual art, came to Beijing for the opening and panel discussion, and appears to have left behind one of her suitcases (a duffel bag filled with airport paperbacks and tagged with airline stickers).

And 50 unscratched lottery tickets supplied by Rutherford Chang could be seen as either a potential big win, or just colorful paper – a direct comment on the “gamble” of art collecting.

As so much of China’s contemporary art exists on an epic scale, the smallness and intimacy of “Pawnshop” are a delight. It’s easy to spend an hour crouched down next to the glass cases, examining all the objects on display, and contemplating which might make for a good purchase – as long as the artist doesn’t reclaim it first.

“Pawnshop” will be at The Shop September 16-November 16 2009; keep up with its transformations on Vitamin’s blog

The Shop (by Vitamin Creative Space)
+86108059004374
B1-1503, Building15, Jianwai SOHO, 39 East 3rd-Ring Rd,
Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100020, China
http://www.vitamincreativespace.com
http://www.e-flux.com/shows/view/7178

Title: “Jiang Zhi’s ‘Attitude’”
Publication: Housevibe, the Opposite House Blog
Date: Sep 2009
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This month, the international art crowds descended upon Shanghai for SHContemporary 09, the third edition of the city’s art fair. But the best parts of any art fair are usually the satellite events surrounding it, and Shanghai’s visitors had plenty to choose from this year. Word quickly spread that one of the not-to-miss highlights was “Attitude,” Osage Gallery’s solo show by Jiang Zhi, which features three brand-new works by the often provocative artist.

Like many Chinese artists of his generation, Jiang is known for his being somewhat of a renaissance man, and his pieces have appeared equally in art festivals like the Venice Biennale, and film festivals from Hong Kong to Torino. Born in 1971 in Hunan Province, he was based in Shenzhen for several years as he began creating distinctive works across photography, video, and installation. For his landmark quasi-documentary “The Moments,” he carried a hand-held DV camera around Shenzhen every single day from 2000-2003 to capture random snippets of city-life: an old man cursing at traffic, two kids learning how to kiss. In the controversial video and photographs of “Our Love,” he profiled the morphing bodies of two individuals: a female ballerina battling breast cancer, and a male nightclub dancer undergoing gender transformation. His more recent photographs and videos have become less raw, more polished, but his basic concerns remain the same – unflinching observations of a changing society, via the microcosm of human emotions, expressions, and bodies.

In “Attitude,” he deeply investigates artifice and reality in how we perform our emotions. “Maiden, All Too Maiden!” is an installation of 100 photographs, all of young women posing against pink backdrops with an expression of “coyness.” The total effect is disturbing rather than charming, suggesting how even this cute and innocent look is a mask we can never see beneath. Upstairs in the 7-channel video loop of “Tremble,” a diverse line-up of naked individuals stand upon vibrating platforms, their flesh shaking at a high frequency as they attempt to hold a rigid pose – simultaneously vulnerable and fierce. But the most striking attempt to peel back these layers of perception and reality is perhaps “0.7% Salt.”

Presented in an intimate alcove at the very top of Osage’s beautiful 1920s villa, this single-channel video shows a beautiful young woman staring straight into the camera, her face gradually shifting from a shy smile to controlled tears. The fact that the woman is Hong Kong starlet Gillian Chung is an extra surprise, and makes the cinematic nature of her crying more beguiling. Though the tears are staged, they’re very much real – the “0.7% salt” solution rolling down her cheeks remains the same, regardless of her “true” emotions. Jiang suggests that in a media-saturated world, perhaps the artificial surface is all we can trust.

Jiang Zhi, “Attitude,” in Shanghai Sep 08-Nov 08, 2009, travelling to Hong Kong December 2009 and will finally hit Beijing April 2010

Osage Gallery Shanghai
93 Duolun Road, Hongkou District
Shanghai, China 200081
Tel: +86 21 5671 3605
www.osagegallery.com

(Chinese Translation)

蒋志的“表态”

上个月，上海09年第三届上海艺术博览会国际当代艺术展开幕，很多国际艺术团体来到上海。但是艺术节最令人兴奋之处还是在于卫星转播，上海的游客选择范围非常广泛。传说万万不能错过的就是奥沙画廊蒋志的个展“表态”，这位激进的艺术家展出了三幅新作。展览到 11 月份，所以还可以安排时间去看。

和许多同年代的艺术家一样，蒋志也多少有些文艺复兴的味道，他的作品在威尼斯双年展、香港电影节和托里诺电影节上展出过。1971年出生于湖南，他现居深圳数年，进行摄影、影像和装置作品的创新工作。从2000年到2003年，为了他那里程碑似的类纪录片“ The Moments” 他每天都带着他的手提DV在深圳的大街小巷抓取这个城市生活的零星碎片：老头儿咒骂交通堵塞，俩小孩儿初试接吻……在那极具争议的视频和摄影作品 “Our Love” 中，他描绘了两个变形的个体：一个女性芭蕾舞者与乳腺癌抗争，一个男性夜店舞者接受变性手术。他近期的摄影作品和影像作品已不如先前露骨，而是更加精致，但是他所关注的东西并没有改变——-通过人类情感，面部表情及肢体的微观世界来直观社会的变迁。

在“表态”这个系列作品中，他对我们在真实或是虚伪的表现情感的问题上深究了一番。Maiden, All Too Maiden 是一件由100张照片组成的装置作品。均为年轻女性在粉红的背景下展现出“羞赧”的表情。而这件作品产生的整体效果不是妩媚可爱，而是令人心烦。暗示着这些可爱的纯真面庞不过是一张张无法透视的面具。而在楼上7频影像输出的“tremble”,一排形态各异的裸体人物站在振动台上，尽管他们想保持静止的姿态，他们的身体还是剧烈的抖动着—-既敏感又激烈。然而这一系列剥离感知和现实层面的作品中最具有冲击力的当属“0.7％的盐。”

呈现在奥沙画廊1920年精美别墅顶端的壁橱内，这幅单频视频表现的是一个漂亮的女人直视着镜头，她的表情渐渐由羞涩的笑容转变为强忍泪水。而作品中此人正是香港影视明星阿娇，这不得不令人格外惊讶。而正是这点也使得她影像性质的哭泣更具迷惑性。尽管眼泪仅是舞台效果，却非常真实。不管她心理感受如何，这些0.7%的盐溶液照样从她的脸颊上滚落下来。蒋志暗示的是在这个媒体浸泡的世界中，我们能相信的也许也只有虚假的表面了。
蒋志作品“表态”，2009年9月8日至11月8日，在上海展出。巡展于12月到达香港，并最终将于2010年来到北京。

上海市虹口区多伦路93号 奥沙画廊
邮编：200081
电话：+86 21 5671 3605
www.osagegallery.com

Title: “Postcards from SHContemporary”
Publication: Artforum China Online
Date: Sep 2009
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If the Shanghai clichés weren’t already clear in my mind, reading Lynn Pan’s 2008 book Shanghai Style: Art and Design between the Wars on my Air China flight to Pudong was a good refresher. The obvious: Shanghai’s style has always been “style” itself. (Luckily, Pan focuses instead on the micro-evolution of this stereotype and its realities.) So perhaps it was unavoidable to view most of the events of ShContemporary week through this lens, starting with Duolun Museum’s In the 1980s kicking off the marathon on Monday (September 7th).

Day One:
For those of us who haven’t previously seen many materials from Wen Pulin’s archive of the Chinese avant-garde, the Duolun show was an eye-opening introduction. The museum’s three stories were filled with lovingly preserved photographs, letters, notes, videos, posters, exhibition stills, and other ephemera from this momentous decade of underground art activity in China. The halls reverberate with the weight of history, innocence, and nostalgia—not to mention fantastic haircuts. As the 80s seem to be in a state of permanent revival as a fashion inspiration, the cumulative aesthetic effect of these documents seems the most striking. Several monitors play grainy, fixed-camera VHS Betacam interviews of young artists in their studios, seriously talking and seriously smoking, their oversize glasses and shaggy or close-cropped hair adding to their intensity and unintentional chic. Several walls are dedicated to the 1989 China/Avant-Garde show in Beijing, including an enormous version of the famous Xiao Lu gunshot photo, which suddenly looks more like a cult film still or Nan Goldin portrait. To top it all off, the third floor features a black-and-white video from a 1988 art opening where sneaker-clad hipsters do wildly original dance moves to the strains of a distorted rock band. (In the spirit of punk, I decided to bootleg a |clip|http://www.drop.io/wenpulinvideo| for a wider audience to enjoy – I bet these kids would have approved.) Viewed today, their awkward anti-fashion becomes irrevocably fashionable, and I found myself wishing for a similarly weird oversized windbreaker and tapered pants.

If Wen Pulin’s archives express an accidental style through appealing to authenticity/nostalgia (ever interrelated), the new show at Osage Gallery opening later that day down the block contains a more explicit connection to this theme. Attitude a series of brand-new works by Jiang Zhi, and fits nicely in Osage’s elegant all-white 1920’s building.

In glossy photo and video portraits of individuals, Jiang explores artifice and reality in human expressions and identity. The first floor contains the sprawling Maiden, All Too Maiden!, 100 photos of women in varying poses of “coyness” from the playbook of femininity; the second floor’s 7-channel video Tremble captures seven nudes vibrating at a high speed, simultaneously comic and disturbing. The top floor features the debut of 0.7% of Salt, a video loop of a beautiful young woman crying. Of course, the fact that the performer is Gillian Chung adds an intriguing layer – the Hong Kong starlet’s career was basically destroyed by the Edison Chen sex scandal in 2008, and Jiang cheekily plays on this backdrop of public disgrace in her performed tears, and our reactions to it. Her weeping feels genuine enough to be uncomfortable, but aestheticized enough to be entirely artificial, all with the slightest hint of a smile playing at her lips in some moments. Jiang Zhi’s Attitude uses the polish of pop media not to criticize the essential “falsehoods” of representation, but rather to suggest that this shiny layer is the only one we can trust.

Related to this, it’s impossible to ignore the Osage gallery space– like so many art venues in Shanghai, Osage takes advantage of a beautiful vintage building to offset the works inside. Drinking wine on the upstairs terrace, or sitting cross-legged on the gallery steps, smoking cigarettes with famous artists in a high-school fashion, it did seem for a moment that, at the very least, style is something to be trusted.

Day Two:
On Tuesday, two other small shows were opening in two other gorgeous, historic buildings. The first was The Shape of Things to Come at 140sqm Gallery, a literally 140 square-meter space on the second floor of a grand old apartment house, currently under noisy renovation. Curated by Beijing-based Beatrice Leanza, the group show of four young artists had a casual low-fi energy, and seemed more about highlighting some cool new stuff than any particularly resonant theme.

The front room prominently featured Liang Shuo’s eye-popping I am fucking beautiful No. 4, an installation of makeshift balustrades (with plenty of fake marble and colored stickers) that evokes the slapdash aesthetic of even the most corporate architecture in Chinese cities. At the other end of the spectrum, Elaine W. Ho’s piece was almost intentionally easy-to-miss; she covered the gallery windows with red and blue film, creating a 3-D glasses effect, and offered a pair of perforated paper spectacles for visitors.

Qiu Xiaofei contributed a Kienholz-y open refrigerator overflowing with fabricated beer bottles; Sun Xun, a corridor hung with ink-painted canvas curtains entitled Ceausescu’s Airship that riffed on weaponry, language, Victorian-era science, etc. As all text was in English and the referents heavily European, the piece wouldn’t have seemed out of place in a steam-punk-oriented indie gallery in San Francisco’s Mission District. This geographic slippage was easily corrected, however, by having a drink on the gallery’s balcony overlooking the afternoon traffic on Fuxing Lu (bonus: some classic Shanghairen pajamas hanging up to dry).

In another part of the French Concession, Art + Shanghai was inaugurating their move to a new location with Wuwei: Being and Nothing, a glossier group show in a glossier restored villa. Making my way up three stories to see the mostly monochromatic and obliquely-“Taoist” works on each floor, it finally dawned on me what makes Shanghai’s art scene truly distinct: stairs. Every exhibition in one of these spaces becomes narrative in an extra dimension.

This journey entailed a pause in the middle to contemplate Shi Zhiying’s black-and-white sea paintings (best quote of the week: “Ni hao, this is beautiful!” from a gesticulating older French gentleman with a heavy accent), and then the surprising revelation of a bedroom on the top floor. Then the trek back downstairs to watch Macau’s Cindy Ng Sio Ieng create one of her spilled-ink works live on video, with ambient sound mixed by Ben Houge. While in an upstairs room, Ieng’s video and Houge’s sound were randomly paired, here each hypnotically fed off of the other, and kept guests sipping their G&T’s and looking on for some while. The only problem was that darn un-turn-off-able data display that seems to plague every video projector in China…

Day Three:
In a circus of a week, by Wednesday it was time for the bigtop. The delicately-Stalinist halls and plazas of the former “Sino-Soviet Friendship Building” made a majestic setting for some pretty predictable content. The vernissage crowds shuffled along through the booths, confronted with many of the same works shown at ArtHK and other fairs this year, but luckily the Discoveries section was a bit more fun.

While featuring many artists that could hardly be called “discoveries” (Who’s that “Marina Abramovic” I’ve been hearing so much about?), the high-arched space gave plenty of room to see works, something art fairs usually lack. Personal highlights included Li Yongbin’s sprawling carpet installation (a painstaking flower-pattern rendered in loose powder, gradually being smudged into nothingness by countless feet), and Liu Wei’s cleverly confusing booth: Designed to look like a trade-show display for a luxury kitchen appliance company, it’s the most convincing I’ve ever seen in an art context, and I assumed it was some bizarre corporate cross-over until spotting the black-and-white photo on the wall of Richard Nixon inspecting a similar model-kitchen. My art vs. commerce radars momentarily scrambled (the proof of an effective ready-made, to me), when I came across the sponsored booth “Hurun Lounge: Nobody Knows China’s Rich Better” upstairs, I was certain it had to be an installation.

Abandoning commerce for academia, many folks next headed across town for History in the Making: Shanghai 1979-2009. Curated by Biljana Ciric, the multi-building exhibition is billed as “the most complete overview of contemporary art practices in Shanghai over the past thirty years,” which is hard to argue. The history lesson traces from rough experiments and emulations of Western-canon classics (ironic takes Kosuth’s chairs by Shi Yong, and Richard Hamilton’s Just What is it collage by Yu Youhan) to new conceptual mischief (Zhou Xiaohu’s excellent “To Chase One’s Tail,” in which he hired 10 different detective agencies to successively follow one another). With a show of such scope, the catalogue seems crucial to filling in the gaps, but sadly the English edition won’t be available for another year. (At least they promised to send a copy to the address on my business card when the time comes.)

Day Four:
Thursday saw most art-fair pilgrims making the hour-long trek to Songjiang for the Bourgeoisified Proletariat exhibition, but for those of us who missed the bus (literally), there was plenty to catch up on at 50 Moganshan Lu. At ShanghArt, Xu Zhen’s new incarnation/company “MadeIn” (short for “Made In China,” get it?) presented Seeing One’s Own Eyes: Middle East Contemporary Art Exhibition. Ostensibly works by Middle Eastern artists “curated” by MadeIn, the heavily symbolic pieces were actually created by Xu Zhen/MadeIn to satirize the expectations of art from this region. Two camels stand in bathtubs, their abnormally-long necks intertwining up to the ceiling; upon closer inspection, they’re revealed to be made from small stuffed animals and packing tape. A set of large styrofoam blocks have been strategically incised with the shapes of Islamic architecture. But the cards of humor, earnestness, offense and politically correct accusation are shuffled so fast that even postcolonial theory-heads are forced to just admire the little palm-lined pond and wish they were allowed to float for a while on the Persian-rug innertube.

Coincidentally, some of these same consciously “problematic” threads continued in BizArt’s solo show by Zhou Xiaohu, Military Exercises Camp – Rescue Plan 10.18. Zhou’s installation design at first glance evokes “Africa” by the same means that Xu Zhen’s Impossible is Nothing show in Beijing earlier this year: copious straw (here in bales suggesting guerrilla bunkers) and a slightly heated, windowless room. But the story is richly complicated by the video re-enactments of a hostage rescue situation (based on the real-life kidnapping of a Chinese oil worker by militants in Sudan), played out by African and Chinese actors in Shanghai, and extended into an interactive video game in the center of the labyrinth (unfortunately malfunctioning the day I visited). The set-up is now revealed to be, in a sense, a stage-set – consciously artificial, yet altogether “real,” as the shattered mobile phones and crumpled military uniforms are the documentary-evidence of an actual performance. In Zhou’s “Camp,” war becomes theater, and moreover, a participatory role-playing game, and viewers need to “exercise” their perspective in locating themselves within it.

After basking in this effective liminal space for a while, it was time to head over to another dislocated locale – the outer-space of Pudong, and the Oriental Pearl Tower. Thursday night saw the inaugural segment of Shanghai eArts festival kick off inside the iconic building; the other main portion would open at Shanghai Moca on Saturday. This section was titled “base target=new”, after a common HTML design tag, but similar to ShContemporary Discoveries, presented more greatest hits (Nam June Paik, Marina again, Bill Viola) than media-art underground. As seems common for new-media art openings, visitors milled around, shyly attempting to interact with works that bleeped and pulsated, never sure what the intended effect was supposed to be. Upstairs on the 78th floor (or the floor that was 78 meters from the ground; it was unclear which), the dark circular hall held works to be experienced more passively (phew), like Joseph Kosuth’s numerical neon, and the digital-glitch videos of Takeshi Murata. But we had to rush a bit, as the diligent Tower staff were eager to herd us back out into the Pudong night. Standing on the street again, it seemed that no new media art project in the show could compare to the space station itself.

Day Five:
On Friday, I finally took my field trip to Bourgeoisified Proletariat, the enormous show inaugurating the new “Songjiang Creative Studio” on the outskirts of Shanghai. In plain terms, it’s another strangely-located steel and glass complex with no discernible future purpose besides this four-day extravaganza of cool new work by over 40 artists. But that’s just fine.

Organized by no fewer than 10 curators (most of whom also appear in the show as artists), Bougeoisified Proletariat deliberately avoids an “overarching thematic” (though the title could be read closely in relation to many pieces) – instead aiming to cut a diverse cross-section through contemporary art production in China as a whole. The five main halls of the show took about two to three hours to get through, and remarkably, I was never once bored.

In the entrance, Yang Zhenzhong’s disturbing Fatality machine continues to spit orange ping-pong balls onto the floor, each printed with something you can die from, such as “Carcinoma of the Anal Canal” and “Cerebral Hemmhorage.” An installation by Shi Qing recalls a frontier church, and stretches his elegant approach to domesticity and emptiness onto a bigger frame. Gleefully juvenile pieces by Liao Guohe and Hangzhou collective Small Productions share space with a surprisingly sober installation of cardboard boxes by neon-sign-stealing He An. Representing for the south were the Yangjiang Group (the collision of calligraphy and soccer), Chu Yun (the ubiquitous lucky-star box), and Borges Libreria (an oversized bicycle equipped with mobile library). And Xu Zhen’s insanely prolific MadeIn (no doubt with the help of many insanely sleepless assistants) had virtually its own wing, presenting four elaborate installations that ranged from a psychedelic styrofoam room to dozens of cigarettes that smoke themselves. My personal favorite was Metal Language, a set of English word-bubbles formed from metal chains on the floor, each illuminated by a tiny flashlight. The phrases were of such pitch-perfect, Twitter-lifted American vernacular (“Hey, those were my college years in Hawaii!”) that I almost expected the piece’s title to be “Art by United States Artists.” Finally, Polit-Sheer-Form Office gave a preview of what may be this structure’s future (and by extension, the tenuous nature of any cultural space vying with industrial forces). On the opening night, they began breaking down one room’s drywall with axes. The axes remain hacked into the plaster for now.

Day Six:
Saturday was a relaxing coda to a seemingly endless week in transit: two afternoon book launches at Three on the Bund’s Glamour Bar. However the pink-tinted lounge featured incredibly comfortable vintage furniture and incredibly strong drinks, which may have made the audience a bit too chill for serious art/culture discourse.

After artist-curator Mathieu Borysevicz premiered Learning from Hangzhou, his lavishly visual study of the urban symbols of the rapidly-developing city, Philip Tinari and Hans Ulrich Obrist took the stage to discuss Hans Ulrich Obrist: The China Interviews. Obrist described the progression of his involvement with Chinese art, tracing back to Cities on the Move and other events that, shocking to remember, took place in the nineties. But “Little Hans” (as his Chinese moniker goes) lives very much in the now, so much so that his default autograph in the books handed to him after the talk all began with a beautifully operatic recording of the day’s date (“On the 12th day, of the 9th month, of the 9th year…”).

Much of the crowd reconvened later at the Shanghai branch of Kee Club, set predictably in an opulent old mansion off Huaihai Lu. It seemed a world away from scruffy Songjiang the day before, but was perhaps just a variation on the same style. Like many Shanghai venues cultural and non, Kee Club is an awkward recreation of the past, while the Songjiang show was a very skillful recreation of the “present.” It was a surprisingly historical week, and a good refresher on the various forms of Shanghai Modern. But after a while, my newly-acquired art books got heavy, and it was time to hop in a taxi back to the only place we can ever really go: the future (aka Pudong).

Title: “Kitsch Cat is the Cat’s Meow”
Publication: Theme Magazine
Date: Fall 2009
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Take a quick spin through Siam Square or Chatuchak Market and it’s clear: Bangkok’s youth culture knows how to do retro. From deadstock sunglasses to modernist furniture, the past is not only present, but lovingly curated and feverishly consumed. The cool kids behind the Kitsch Cat project, however, are taking an obsession with a previous decade (namely the ’80s) to a whole new level.

Kitsch Cat was born a year ago when Thai electro-pop fixture Cesar B. De Guzman (aka Cyndi Seui) and graphic designer/musician Peera Suk-a-Suk (aka Yuri’s Nominee) began brainstorming on a music collaboration—something personal and separate from their day-jobs at indie label Smallroom Records. Soon their friend Jaree Thanapura (aka Gramaphone Children) joined in, and over weekly dinners at a Thonglor ramen joint, the concept evolved: a mini-label to push the electronic music envelope, through compilations, T-shirt design, a blog, and any other means necessary.

“We didn’t expect it to come out so ’80s,” Thanapura explains, “but it ended up that everyone was doing something relating to ’80s music, and it just snapped into place… kinda like velcro.” Velcro is cited as an influence in the liner notes of the first CD compilation, alongside “8-bit video games, vinyl toys, Rubik’s cubes, calculator watches, and spandex.”

The six artists on the compilation remix their reference points into something fresh. Juicy synths and shiny horns are chopped almost beyond recognition in D.J.S.C.P’s dense composition, while Gramaphone Children’s “One Pink Saturday” is a tweaked John Hughes film theme song. The King of Pop is alive and well in Cyndi Seui’s tracks, cross-shuffled and sped up for an impatient age.

After the CD’s release last fall, Kitsch Cat won admirers in France, Japan, and beyond (swamping De Guzman with lots of remix work for electro acts like Astrolabe and Freaku). Ironically, the local scene is discovering them from the outside-in, through international music blogs. Meanwhile the Cats are working on upcoming live shows, the next CD compilation and corresponding T-shirt, and perhaps even a custom-designed “Kitsch Cat” effects filter. Their grand plans to “create electro madness on the dance floor” are well under way.

Title: “Flu Season / Scene & Herd Column”
Publication: Artforum Online
Date: May 2009
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JUST A WEEK BEFORE THE OPENING of ART HK 09, hundreds of international travelers were quarantined at the Wanchai Metropark Hotel—a stone’s throw from the Convention Center hosting the fair—and most passengers landing at HKG were having their temperatures screened by hazmat-suited officials. Luckily, the specter of swine flu didn’t faze most players in an Asian art market stricken with its own ailments. The hordes descended on the city as planned, perhaps reassured by a statement from ART HK promising “hand sanitizers at the entrance and at strategic points within the fair.” Or maybe, as one Beijing artist joked, people were just hoping to get quarantined at the five-star Grand Hyatt.

At the vernissage, the mood was cautiously buoyant; the fair’s unofficial motto of “better than last year” seemed to hold up at first glance. Near the entrance, new additions Gagosian, Lisson, and White Cube were working big and splashy looks (with Lisson showing wall-to-wall Julian Opie), while farther back, usual Beijing suspects such as Boers-Li, Galleria Continua, Urs Meile, Red Gate, and ShanghART mixed with a host of pan-Asian galleries like Kukje, Tomio Koyama, and Eslite, each of which showed consistently polished work. Prominent collectors and local visitors all nodded their heads approvingly and tossed about buzzwords like quality, professional, and potential. The only complaints were about the white walls (plastic instead of wood) and the white wine (undrinkable).

Better alcohol was on offer at Gagosian’s opening-night afterparty at the Pawn, which sadly seemed a victim of its own exclusivity. The historic Wanchai pawnshop-turned-lounge actually had elbow room at midnight—all the better, perhaps, for the dedicated few dancing to the’80s playlist put together by the gallery’s Nadia Chan. (Though Gagosian opened a local office last year, there’s still no word on when they’ll launch an actual gallery.) At a slightly livelier Pawn party hosted by Schuebbe Projects the following night, a few attendees offered their early assessments of the fair. Beijing/Lucerne dealer Urs Meile remarked that ART HK’s ambition to become the Art Basel of the East is not out of reach. He compared Hong Kong to Switzerland (“Same population, very practical people, forced to become very international because they are so small”) and also explained why it’s a good contrast to Beijing: “Beijing is hell––interesting hell, but hell.” Of course, art sold in China is also burdened with a 34 percent luxury tax––one advantage that tax-free Hong Kong holds.

A highlight of the fair’s programs was the Asia Art Archive’s “Backroom Conversations,” a series of screenings and panels that aimed to give an intellectual counterweight to the market madness. The afternoon premiere of the AAA’s new documentary, From Jean-Paul Sartre to Teresa Teng: Contemporary Cantonese Art in the 1980s, was standing-room-only, and even Sir David Tang (founder of Shanghai Tang and the China Club, art collector, and general cultural pundit) was in attendance. In her introduction, AAA chair and art historian Jane Debevoise discussed the “complex and important reasons” that Guangdong is overlooked in art-history books. It’s a topic close to the hearts of the Hong Kong artists, curators, writers, and dealers who have also felt left out of the narrative (and/or bubble) of Chinese contemporary art. When Sir David in effect called Hong Kong artists lazy for relying on the government to support an arts scene while the ’80s Guangdong artists created their own, an irate woman shouted him down, telling him he didn’t know anything about Hong Kong art.

The state of Chinese contemporary art was clearly on everyone’s minds, and it was specifically explored in another panel, “China Focus: Reinvesting in Contemporary Chinese Art.” Moderated by dealer Johnson Chang, critic Hu Fang, artist Qiu Anxiong, collector Uli Sigg, curator Pauline J. Yao, and Artforum’s own Phil Tinari, the group weighed in, agreeing on certain points: Everything is in flux, artists will be tested, and Mainland criticality has to step it up. In a more combative panel later that evening, the London debate forum Intelligence Squared made its Asian debut with the polemical topic “Finders, Not Keepers! Cultural Treasures Belong in Their Country of Origin.” Inspired by the recent YSL auction debacles regarding the Old Summer Palace bronze animal heads, several distinguished men with British accents (including Sir David, again) spoke for and against the motion, which was moderated by CNN anchor and Twitter enthusiast Kristie Lu Stout. In the end, the audience voted 110 for, 247 against; apparently, people like the Elgin Marbles just where they are.

As the fair plunged into the weekend, visitors were lured farther afield by various openings: Li Qing at Hanart TZ, Yan Lei and MC Yan at Tang Contemporary, and two interrelated shows at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery: photographs by Dinh Q. Lê at the Soho space, and, at the gallery’s annex in the Chai Wan Industrial district, a group show of young Vietnamese artists curated by Lê and Zoe Butt. The latter’s warehouse after party stretched late into Saturday night, mixing young Hong Kong artists like Lee Kit, Chow Chun Fai, and Warren Leung Chi Wo and his wife, Sara Wong Chi Hang, who compared the annex space with the sizes of their own studios with artists Rirkrit Tiravanija and Michael Lin.

By Sunday evening, the fair was all but over––except for those who were staying for the opening of the Louis Vuitton exhibition, “A Passion for Creation,” opening at the Hong Kong Museum of Art several days later. News circulated about big purchases of works by Damien Hirst, Opie, and Gilbert & George, but most galleries went home with few sales. Robin Peckham of Boers-Li Gallery twittered a glum summary of the scene: “Art HK winners: major Western galleries, local Hong Kong galleries. Big losers: major mainland galleries.”

Title: “Hong Kong Art Wave”
Publication: Planet Magazine
Date: Winter 2008/2009
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Hong Kong has always been a mercantile town, built by pirates, British opium-traders, and successive waves of mainland immigrants whose inclinations were more capitalist than communist, and by no means artistic. In recent years, though, the “Special Administrative Region,” as Hong Kong became termed after the handover to China, has become a significant platform for the explosion of Mainland Chinese visual art, hosting one record-breaking auction after another. But even beyond the auction block, some exciting new developments indicate that Hong Kong’s local art scene may finally be coming into its own.

The most intriguing venues are truly alternative spaces where indie creativity thrives. A growing synergy with fashion and design has produced ventures like the Diesel Brave Gallery, the Agnes B. Librairie Gallerie, and the independent boutique Kapok, each showcasing video, photo, and installation alongside clothing racks and hipster toys. On the even more DIY side, Para/site Art Space in the historic Sheung Wan district has supported local artists ranging from photographer Warren Leung Chi Wo to up-and-coming conceptualist Lee Kit for over a decade, and has recently brought big international names like Paul Chan, Cao Fei and Lawrence Weiner into the mix. Across the harbor in Kowloon, the Cattle Depot Artist Village is a former abattoir now housing a small theatre, studios, and independent spaces like Artist Commune, 1a Space and Videotage in its original red brick courtyard.

On more establishment levels, this past spring saw the first official Hong Kong Art Fair (Art HK 08), featuring more than 100 galleries from around the world, just a few weeks after the latest round of sky-high Sotheby’s sales. Collectors in town for the fair could also trek up to the veteran commercial galleries around Hollywood Road, such as Schoeni Gallery (launching pad for many of the big-name mainland oil painters) and 10 Chancery Lane, as well as the new branch of Bangkok/Beijing-based Tang Contemporary. New openings also include Atting House, an auction space and website devoted to Hong Kong artists (the brainchild of the venerable Johnson Chang, curator and founder of Hanart TZ Gallery); Ooi Botos, a space dedicated to edgy contemporary photography; and if the hype is to be believed, Gagosian Gallery, will bring their blue-chip art-stars to the Fragrant Harbor sometime this year.

Still, many artists lament Hong Kong’s lack of a world-class contemporary art museum (the existing one focuses on modern and Chinese ink works), or a Biennale to call its own. But if the dynamic combination of glitzy mainland capital and DIY local spirit continues, it may only be a matter of time.

Title: “Ourselves Beside Me” (note: as of publication time, the band was still using the name ‘Ourself Beside Me’)
Publication: Theme Magazine
Date: Dec/Jan 2008/2009
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Sweet Factory is a tiny recording studio unexpectedly tucked into a nondescript apartment complex outside Beijing’s 3rd Ring Road.

Inside, three girls in jeans and vintage shirts—known as Ourself Beside Me—are lounging on the couch and shag carpet, one idly toying with a tambourine as the engineer and producer set up to record their debut album. It hardly looks like Beijing rock history in the making, but sometimes evolution is a pretty subtle thing.

The retro trio has quickly become one of Beijing’s buzziest acts. Guitarist and singer Yang Fan is hardly new to hype—while still a teenager she founded Hang On The Box, the iconic all-girl punk band that helped define the Chinese underground in the nineties. After HOTB disbanded last year, Yang (now 27) turned in her studded collar and formed Ourself Beside Me with friends Xie Han (21, bass, film student) and Emi Namihira (27, drums, a Japanese student who studied Chinese for a year and never went back). Befitting a new, more expansive era of Beijing music, they began forging an electrifying new sound—that is, an older one.

“Syd Barrett!” Yang Fan and Xie Han both exclaim, when asked about influences; Yang Fan discovered rock’n’roll in middle school via Pink Floyd’s The Wall—it was cheaper than the other cassettes and had better cover art. This psychedelic affinity permeates their songs, but filtered through tight, mannered melody lines and a rhythmic, garage-y thump, all underlying Yang Fan’s trademark whisper/shout of oblique English lyrics. The interweaving of guitar and bass bears traces of Talking Heads, The Fall, Television, and the Velvet Underground, with an insistent twist.

Producer Yang Haisong (founder of veteran rock band PK 14) has his work cut out for him trying to get OBM’s debut disc right; the band’s paradoxically meandering but tight live presence isn’t easy to capture. But what kind of sound are they looking for, Xie Han considers. “Hmm…More like ourself.” She shouldn’t worry too much. Smack in the midst of Beijing’s ever-mutating scene, there’s no one else who sounds quite like Ourself anyhow.

Title: “Dreamchaser”
Publication: Theme Magazine
Date: Dec/Jan 2008/2009
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Vientiane is a sleepy city on the scale of Southeast Asian capitals, and even quieter in the days following Pi Mai (the Lao New Year).

Still, on this balmy April evening, there are plenty of motorbikes, scooters, and other two-wheel vehicles zooming around the Patuxai Arch and down Avenue Lan Xang. Some carry three generations of one family, others a daredevil load of everything and the kitchen sink (sometimes literally).

Two of the riders purposefully follow a pick-up truck with a cameraman standing in the back; he carefully films their every swerve. Also crammed into the bed are a boom-guy and a petite woman with a walkie-talkie (the producer). They roar their way back to the small house serving as their base camp, where the rest of the team waits with the rest of the gear, going over the next day’s route. They’re all exhausted, but filled with the calm energy of people doing exactly what they want to be doing.

This little caravan is the rolling set of “Dreamchaser,” an unconventional travel/documentary show for Thai television focused on a man, a motorcycle, and his search for inspiring people and experiences. Their second season took them from Bangkok to Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and back home again, and though they now have corporate sponsors, the spirit is still pure DIY. What separates this show from typical “on the road” reality TV fare is that it’s a bit of a creative dream for all involved.

The easy rider behind it all is Kamol Sukosol Clapp, aka “Sukie”, age 37, indie-rock impressario turned bike-loving adventurer. Born in Bangkok to a Thai mother and American father but raised partially in the States, Sukie’s fate was sealed when he heard ACDC’s “Highway to Hell” at age 12; he then asked his mother to buy him an electric guitar. In his early twenties, he and a few friends founded a record label called Bakery Music; the first indie label in Thailand, the first to sign acts like grunge rockers Modern Dog and pioneering MC Joey Boy, and the first to profit off of the explosion of the indie sound. He produced big bands and played in his own, the guitar-rock quartet Pru. “We were all young,” he recalls. “We were just kids doing what we wanted to do. We were in the right place at the right time, and it just grew and grew.”

Bakery’s growth led to it being bought by BEC-Tero/Sony BMG in 2004, at which point Sukie left the music biz. Which is when the mid-30s crisis hit. “Since I was 12 I had wanted to play music,” Sukie says, “and now I didn’t know what to do. I had no inspiration, no passion.” After six months of aimlessness, his friend suggested he get out of Bangkok for a while. So he bought a motorcycle and began riding around the countryside. In typical Sukie fashion, “one thing led to another,” and soon a TV show/cultural phenomenon was born.

The idea for the first season was simple: to motorcycle around Thailand, meeting interesting people who are following their dreams, such as the leader of an upcountry elephant sanctuary, or a young doctor on a small southern island who moonlights as a hipster-novelist. Maybe Sukie would stumble into his own next passion in the process. “It’s called Dreamchaser because I’m looking for my next dream,” he says. “I hoped the audience can watch it and be inspired to follow their own dream too.”

Sukie knew nothing about executive producing and hosting a television show, but luckily he had a good friend to bring along for the ride. “Dreamchaser” director Aditya “Juke” Assarat is a childhood friend of Sukie’s—and also happens to be one of Thailand’s most promising emerging filmmakers. After a similar youth spent in both Bangkok and the States, Assarat attended USC film school, and then became the first Thai filmmaker invited to the Sundance Directors Lab. He was also hand-picked by Mira Nair for a special Rolex mentorship on the strength of his quietly luminous shorts (one is presciently titled Motorcycle) and could have easily stayed in Los Angeles to go for the indie/Hollywood gold. Instead, he returned to Bangkok to work on quirkier projects, like the experimental collaboration Three Friends, assorted shorts, and a concert documentary for Sukie’s band Pru. He also set up Pop Pictures with friends/producers Soros Sukhum and Jetnipith Teerakulchanyut, with the aim of developing and shooting his first fiction feature Wonderful Town, as well as taking on other interesting projects and some commercial work to keep the machinery going.

When Sukie came to him with “Dreamchaser,” Assarat jumped right in. “‘Dreamchaser’ was my introduction to the TV business,” Assarat says. “None of the people involved in the show had ever done anything for TV before. So the first season was sort of learn-as-you-go.”

That first season saw Assarat and his steadfast crew of Pop Pictures collaborators trucking around the Thai countryside, following Sukie as he sped along rural routes, meeting with dreamers of all stripes, and generally enjoying life on the road.

Assarat compares the experience of directing “Dreamchaser” to a musical “jam session”—“All the previous plans go out the window and you mostly work in the moment; it’s very fresh and liberating, especially compared to making a movie, which is more constructed, story-boarded, and planned ahead of time.” The style reflects this—a breezy combination of vérité observation, interviews with featured guests, scenes of Sukie in traveler-mode, the occasional spill, and wild, unscripted moments, all guided by his casual narration and, of course, plenty of road tunes. “My background in music doesn’t really effect the TV show at all, other than making sure we have a damn good soundtrack!” Sukie laughs.

In spring of 2007, the finished program premiered on TITV, and seemed to strike a chord with the audience. Soon, on every upcountry trip he took, Sukie encountered average Thais who always asked the same question: Will there be a Season Two?

In the meantime, he released his memoir about the Bakery years (entitled Bakery & I) and waited for his director. Toward the end of 2007, Assarat’s Wonderful Town debuted on the festival circuit to acclaim, winning prizes from Pusan to Rotterdam. The spare drama follows a city architect coming to a small town hit hard by the 2004 tsunami, and the private confrontations he finds there. Wonderful Town shows a thoughtful auteur at work, with touches reminiscent of Tsai Ming-Liang and Assarat’s countryman Apichatpong Weerasethakul—seemingly lightyears away from the revved-up fun of “Dreamchaser.” Which might be one reason he went back for a second helping.

For “Dreamchaser 2”, Sukie had even bigger plans. He wanted it to be more adventurous, with a tougher riding route. He wanted to go outside the Thai borders and cover all of Indochina (Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam). The first season had the occasional celebrity guest as Sukie’s riding partner—such as the half-Laotian, half-Australian heartthrob Ananda Everingham (who has been called the hardest-working actor in Thai showbusiness). This time Sukie wanted to cast an unknown as his sidekick. And they wanted the show to raise money for charity, after the great success of raising funds through Season One for an elephant sanctuary featured on one episode. In short, they wanted “Dreamchaser” to truly be a vehicle for others’ dreams as well.

Halfway through the filming of Season Two, the “Dreamchaser” gang found themselves in Vientiane, having already weathered food poisoning in Vietnam and a police-escorted journey through the notoriously dangerous “Pink Route” between Bangkok and Mae Sot, among other surprises. There they visited Makphet, a bright and airy restaurant run by Friends International as a training kitchen for former street youth. Sukie joined in the kitchen for a bit as the kids got to work, and later sampled their curries and salads in the dining room. In other stops like Mae Jam, Hoa Binh, and Phnom Penh, they also shot innovative charity and community projects like dams and schools, balancing a social consciousness with the moments of pure adventure.

Riding alongside Sukie the whole way was Hui, the son of fruit farmers from Loei in Northern Thailand who was fresh out of his compulsory army service. He had been selected from an open call of over 200 people, just because he loved riding bikes and didn’t know what to do next with his life. Sukie sees himself as a sort of big-brother to Hui, and even expresses concern about his transition back to “real life.” “He’s loving it. I’m just a bit worried how he’ll adjust after the show, because he says ‘This is what I want to do, ride all day,’ and I think, ‘Well, you have to work, too.’”

Of course, Sukie is the enviable case who appears to have accomplished both in one stroke. Assarat feels as if he’s lucked out as well, but takes on various projects to keep Pop Pictures going and his staff in their jobs. “My life is balanced quite nicely between my films, where I am the director, and various other TV and commercial jobs, where often I am not the director. It’s the second category that keeps everyone employed.”

“Dreamchaser,” now picked up by the bigger Thai TV network Channel 3, is a perfect blend. “‘Dreamchaser’ is the project that everybody most looks forward to every year,” says Assarat. “It’s a two-month long road trip, visiting different places, doing crazy things; who wouldn’t want to be a part of it?” Indeed, for two months the Bangkok hipster kids of Pop Pictures get to transform into a scruffy but efficient unit of guerrilla creativity, bumping along the superhighways and jungle roads: three trucks, two motorcycles, two DV cameras, one mini-camera, one spy-camera, one high-megapixel digital camera, one boom and sound system (hooked up to a perpetually chain-smoking soundman in a vintage t-shirt), helmets, walkie-talkies, cellphones, and backpacks—most adorned with stickers of the retro monkey-face “Dreamchaser” logo. Then, of course, they return to the city for the hard work of editing all that footage.

“Dreamchaser 2” premiered in June, but this year went beyond just the TV set. The website is expanding with nearly 600 members registered only a few weeks after its launch, and books, DVDs, and bike-rallies are in the pipeline. In August, a large charity concert featuring old Bakery bands like Modern Dog helped raise nearly $9 million Thai Baht ($260,000 USD), and of course, some discussion about Season Three has begun. “We are considering Beijing to Istanbul, but it will require a lot of planning time and financing,” Sukie says. Also, rising star Assarat needs to schedule it around his next feature, a slightly personal tale of a US-raised Bangkok boy returning home, entitled High Society and starring the tireless Ananda Everingham.

The question remains: Has Sukie found his next dream after all? “I feel very fortunate to be doing what I’m doing,” he reflects, but cites a lesson he learned from the music industry: not to compromise himself or his artistic integrity too much, and to always keep it fun. “I want to take ‘Dreamchaser’ as far as I can but not to the point where it becomes too big and I am no longer in control of it, but it’s in control of me.” If ever that is the case, Sukie will probably just speed off into the sunset, chasing the next dream, and creating something undeniably special in the process.

Title: “Art in Shanghai: ShContemporary 08″
Publication: Artkrush (now defunct, a branch of Flavorpill)
Date: Sep 2008
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The Beijing Olympics have drawn to a close, but the Asian art world is getting ready for its own pageant of sorts, as a spate of art fairs and biennials kicks off in Shanghai. The second ShContemporary joins the more established Shanghai Art Fair and 2008 Shanghai Biennale to showcase a broad selection of big names and fresh faces.

ShContemporary 08 features 150 galleries from 20 countries, split evenly between artists from inside and outside Asia. Vienna’s Hilger Contemporary displays Spencer Tunick’s trademark photos of mass nude happenings in cities around the world, while Zhang Huan explores the body and its place in Chinese culture with his recycled temple-ash works at Pace Beijing, a new space for New York’s Pace Wildenstein. Bodhi Art exhibits unsettling security-based photographs by rising Indian star Shilpa Gupta, and Zhou Xiaohu, represented by the Walsh Gallery of Chicago, contributes Concentration Training Camp, a sly video and photographic commentary on corporate conformity set in the artist’s native Shanghai.

Chinese urbanism comes into clear focus in works such as Anothermountainman’s Lanwei photo series of abandoned construction projects at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery and the photo-assemblages of Shanghai dwellings by Spain’s Isidro Blasco at Contrasts Gallery. Beijing’s Long March Space brings Zhan Wang’s contemplative stainless-steel rock gardens, while Alexander Ochs Galleries highlights the works of Wang Mai, whose cartoonish, color-drenched canvases offer a snide twist on recent clichés in Chinese painting. James Cohan Gallery focuses on the darkly playful postcolonial works of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, extending coverage of the artist with a concurrent solo show at its new Shanghai outpost.

For the Best of Discovery exhibition, 11 international curators selected a range of markedly experimental works. Pieces by better-known figures such as Beijing’s Wang Luyan — a muscular satirist of consumption and politics — share space with sprawling, crafty installations from emerging Australian duo Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro and the psych-tinged sculptures and paintings of New Zealander Rohan Wealleans. By way of Israel and Amsterdam, Yael Bartana employs cultural symbols to unpack political concerns, and from Japan, upstart provocateur Tadasu Takamine — most notorious for his controversial Kimura-san video, which shows the artist helping a disabled friend masturbate — is grouped with his more sedate countryman Sakae Ozawa.

Finally, the Outdoor Projects present 20 large-scale pieces beyond the booths, including iconic text-based works by Lawrence Weiner, a tension-charged accumulation of windows and doors by Liu Wei, live tattooed pigs from Wim Delvoye’s Art Farm, and Same like Me, a zoo-like, glassed-in enclosure by Wang Wei that plays on the politics of observation.

As if ShContemporary weren’t enough for Shanghai art-goers, the 100-plus galleries at the Shanghai Art Fair, now in its 12th year, offer more commercial and traditional works, but expect something more adventurous at its ShanghART and 1918 ArtSpace booths. And the seventh installment of the Shanghai Biennale builds on the theme of “Trans Local Motion” with native heavyweights the Big Dipper Group — comprised of Liu Yue, Wu Lizhong, and Xu Xubing — and international iconoclasts like America’s Mike Kelley, Korea’s Sanggil Kim, and Israel’s Guy Ben-Ner.

Of course, with almost a dozen other biennials, triennials, and assorted art proceedings opening in Gwangju, Busan, Singapore, Guangzhou, and Taipei this month, Shanghai is only the first stop on this season’s Asian art circuit.

ShContemporary 08 runs from September 10 to 13 at the Shanghai Exhibition Center; the Shanghai Art Fair is on view from September 9 to 14 at ShanghaiMART; and the Shanghai Biennale takes over the Shanghai Art Museum from September 9 to November 16.