THE NEW SHANGHAI Gallery of Art (SGA) opened on the Bund a couple weeks ago, and anyone who was anyone was there: media types, event sponsors from designer labels, artists in heavy-framed glasses and a curator wrapped in a red feather boa.
Waiters made the rounds with champagne, canapes and sushi rolls made with as much artistic license as the paintings on the walls. There were works by the usual suspects, such as Fang Lijun and Yue Minjun, probably Beijing's two most important avant-garde artists. You've probably seen their works if you've ever walked down Hollywood Road. The former is famous for repeated images of bald Chinese men; the latter for repeated images of hysterically smiling Chinese men.
The inaugural show, 'Beyond Boundaries', also features plastic dinosaur toys strewn on a table by Sui Jianguo (whose red polyresin dinosaur did so well at Hong Kong's recent Asia Art Archive auction), and several examples of the video art currently en vogue in contemporary art circles. There were 20 artists represented.
The SGA is part of the new 'Three on the Bund' development. In 1997, real estate development group House of Three bought the neo-classical Union Assurance Company building on the Bund, intending to convert it into a showcase for the best food, fashion, music and art. It's now had a facelift, courtesy of architect Michael Graves. The finished space will include the SGA, Armani boutiques, exclusive restaurants, Evian spas and cigar bars - becoming part of the trend to create increasingly chic developments in Shanghai. But despite its high-brow neighbours, A-list of guests and famous artists, the SGA promises to be a more democratic space, one where students, bankers and artists alike can interact. SGA director Weng Ling emphasises 'this is anything but the standard gallery; it is a gallery with a mission. If you love art, you are welcome here.'
'Shanghai is too commercial,' says Weng. 'People from different sectors of society don't have a proper space to communicate.' She wants to use the gallery to break down China's hierarchical culture, which she feels cordons off artists from the public. 'I hate artists who stay only in the art world ... even if they have fights or intellectual disagreements the discourse does not spread beyond their small circle to reach the public,' says Weng.
According to Handel Lee, co-chairman of House of Three and owner of both Three on the Bund and Beijing's celebrated Courtyard Gallery, the SGA will help bridge this gap. 'The SGA will introduce China's most important artists, known and unknown ... SGA is a forum where dialogue between art and society occurs, where the artists and the people converge.'