The much anticipated James Cohan Gallery opens in Shanghai … but gets a dress rehearsal as my baby’s 100th day party+TAIAN LU 泰安路, the film premiere

Arthur Solway has been working the Shanghai realtors, business bureau and visa offices for almost a year now. A task that requires heaps of patience, know how, and a good, resilient spirit. Arthur’s got all that and more. His ambitious work is quickly coming to fruition – He’s landed this PHAT Art Deco building in the center of the French Concession, with big yard (some of which the neighbors hang their laundered underwear in) and will open July 10th with a group show of the gallery's greatists: Bill Viola, Roxy Paine (who I thought was a woman all this time), Jeff Koons, Richard Long, Wim Wenders (who I thought was a filmaker all this time), etc.. Arthur's determined not only to educate the Shanghai public about western contemporary art but also to mine the region for hungry collectors of the stuff too. He’s already had a great start last year with a big Nam Jun Paik sale at the SH Contemporary Fair and while not exactly going strong since, we’re sure he’ll do just fine. Last week, as a way to test run the space, our little Rui had his 100th day party there. While most folks were away for the season, weekend, etc. It was a fine time. We also premiered our latest film TAIAN LU 泰安路 In Shanghai for the guests. TAIAN LU 泰安路 was a commissioned short for IA’s China Now project and reflects ‘my China’ at the time it was made- it stars Shanghai's most famous abstract painter DingYi as well as a lot of other folks. Below is a list of venues where it’s playing in the UK this summer-more info*
Below that is a statement about the film.

Hayward Gallery (Concrete Bar), Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre , BBC Big Screens, City Art Centre, Filming East Festival, The Yorkshire Waterways Museum, Chinese Arts Centre, Park Lane Intercontinental, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Filmhouse, Edinborough, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London


TAIAN LU 泰安路 PAL HD 1080i 13 mins
From the point of view of a mixed couple on the verge of having a (Euro-Asian) child, the new China metaphorically comes alive as a concept that is at once universally pervasive and persistently elusive. Mixing documentary, fiction and fantastical elements the story unfolds as a strange day-in-the-life odyssey of this young couple. The story centers around Taian Lu No.6, a dilapidated colonial era building, now home to an eclectic cross section of Shanghai’s demography. Through the daily conundrums of the houses’ residents, a cross-cultural television show, brief tele-conference forays with New York’s Chinatown and the waking dreams of a pregnant mother, the extended family of man in the 21st century is told. Urban China comes alive as a series of fantasies and facts. Mixing allegory, class stratification and poetry, this film is a frenetic and impressionistic ode to a China as a global concept- enrapt in an accelerated and often erratic attempt to do too much too soon.

$hop till you Drop in the Biz City... or die of boredom first

So the good folks at Bizart finally opened a commercial gallery. I mean we were all waiting for them to do it- yep just waiting for another raw expression of capitalism to rear its almighty head in the (con)temporary arts of China. I mean I thought it was a joke- tongue in cheek, irony, you know another smart ass expression of contemporary arts malleability of form - (Cattelan had his Wrong Gallery, Oldenberg had his Store, even our main man XuZhen had his Shanghart Supermarket at Miami Basel…Pure conceptual wit was what I was expecting of the creators of HeYShehui, art baba, HiPIC and the experimental mindspace that Bizart itself offers to the otherwise intellectually deprived artgoing public of Shanghai
but Noooooo -This is a real gallery that supports, a’hem, emerging talent, uhhm that is mostly talent in the form of paint on canvas AND from the likes of their first colorful show in this intimate though, very white, cubelike space, stuff priced to $ell. Yep, a completely original anomaly in the M50 (Shanghai’s very commercial gallery district) setting. The idea is to sell, sell, sell… to raise money for the idealistic, artistic creativity of its owners. Funny that they are conveniently located in a nice turn-of-the-century stable building right next door to the gallery where most of these owners themselves exhibit and sell their goods- Shanghart. According to artist, Shi Yong- Lorenz (Hebling Shanghart’s owner) is happy to have the competition so closely nearby.
SHOPPING GALLERY –as it is aptly titled - is a partnership between artists: Xu Zhen, Shi Yong, Liu Jianhua, Jin Feng, Yang Zhenzhong, Vicky (from Bizart) and one other person that I can’t recall at the moment. Either way the creative minds of Shanghai have finally jinqian 进钱 been soaked by the late Spring currency rains… I’m not sure that makes it through in translation BUT Shopping Gallery is a C- idea.

Opening notes: Yan Lei was in town complaining of high blood pressure(yet another artist fallen to high blood pressure in the last half year) and the opening dinner, held in a Neo-Napoleonic nightmare of a restaraunt was attended by a Serbian curator that lives in Dubai, the omni present MianMian and all the usual suspects