Yesterday afternoon I headed out to ShContemporary 2010, or the "Asia Pacific Contemporary Art Fair" housed in the Shanghai Exhibition Center as pictured above. This marks my first Art Fair, which basically means a whole lot of booths/mini-galleries of work being shown by their respective galleries and representation. It was largely uninteresting save for seeing the Korean sculptor Lee Jae-Hyo's work (which was written about in Sculpture magazine), Yu Guang with his (?) evocative and atmospheric illustrations and by far the most interesting of anyone else there, Yang Yongliang with these landscape collages of China's building boom. They are made to look like the traditional, historic landscape paintings but with a modern twist. I liked the work so much that I wanted to buy the album the gallery had but it was their only copy (tsk, tsk, poor planning) so all I had to settle for was writing down my email so that maybe I could buy it later (or I just have to go to Beijing).

Yang Yongliang also has animated work

My next stop was a folk art workshop in what is called a traditional neighborhood, for Shanghai. I couldn't gauge the age of it, but probably pre-war:

The place I went to is called Ru-Wa Workshop and they have classes for making traditional Chinese crafts like kites, lanterns and cloth animals as well as a store of things made mostly by people in the north of China.

No.81 is tucked on the left

I ended up buying a few really nice things and I had a talk with the proprietress which reminded me that there are nice people in Shanghai; they're just few and far between. Someone was telling me Friday night that Shanghai is like New York City while Beijing is like Washington DC. Not just politically, atmospherically. My favorite purchase at Ru Wa has to be the traditional paper/wood umbrella. They're quite extraordinary. I think I might go back and buy the full-sewn one with embedded leaves in it. I have to pay in cash and there's no bargaining (I don't like bargaining) so we'll see as it's pricier.

Today, I spent the afternoon shopping for some art materials on Fuzhou Lu. It was somewhat successful but I do miss the convenience of Utrecht.

Did I mention I could write an entire post on package/ small object design?

[note] Next up, Zhujiajao from last weekend. [/note]