https://www.scmp.com/rss/14811/feed Lisa Movius has been based in Shanghai since 1998 and covers avant-garde art and culture around Asia. She is the China Bureau Chief and Asia Correspondent for The Art Newspaper, a London-based art industry publication. en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com The art of Song Dong has always been deeply personal. Born in 1966, the artist is known for using both his own body and his native Beijing as a canvas to explore ideas of change and impermanence. For example, he “froze” his own breath on the winter slabs of Tiananmen Square for the performance piece Breathing in 1996, and, like the old men who show off their calligraphy in local parks by writing on the ground in water, Song’s Writing Diary with Water (1995) evaporates soon after he records a... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3227964/how-chinese-artist-song-dongs-exhibitions-covid-era-works-remind-us-universal-desire-connection-lost?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3227964/how-chinese-artist-song-dongs-exhibitions-covid-era-works-remind-us-universal-desire-connection-lost?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 17 Jul 2023 20:15:08 +0000 Though Beijing’s new Sound Art Museum is located in the suburban artist village of Songzhuang, the sounds of the city’s downtown hutongs fill the sprawling complex, which opened on May 19. Visitors first encounter a permanent exhibition titled “The Sound of Old Beijing”, which indexes historic sounds including street vendors, songbirds and fighting crickets. In another section, visitors are asked to provide recordings of their favourite sounds of the city, since the team behind this unusual... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3224326/could-become-one-chinas-best-museums-sound-art-museum-beijing-gets-flying-start-high-calibre?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3224326/could-become-one-chinas-best-museums-sound-art-museum-beijing-gets-flying-start-high-calibre?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 19 Jun 2023 23:15:11 +0000 Yuz Museum was a landmark on Shanghai’s West Bund after it opened in a converted airport hangar in May 2014. Founded by the late Chinese-Indonesian businessman and art collector Budi Tek, Yuz is one of China’s best-known private museums. It has held numerous blockbuster exhibitions, forged a three-way partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and Qatar Museums, and been at the forefront of discussions about governance and the long-term infrastructure required for single-owner... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3223511/why-landmark-china-museum-yuz-moved-shanghais-west-bund-citys-outskirts-and-what-its-new-life-holds?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3223511/why-landmark-china-museum-yuz-moved-shanghais-west-bund-citys-outskirts-and-what-its-new-life-holds?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 13 Jun 2023 03:15:16 +0000 There are few experiences as surreal as fleeing an art fair for dear life, but in 2022 Shanghai surrealism has been in plentiful supply. On November 11 and 12, the city’s two flagship contemporary art fairs were abruptly shut down mid-run because of China’s draconian Covid-19 contact-tracing and quarantine measures. This was just the latest blow to the local art market, which has existed in suspended animation ever since Shanghai’s two-month lockdown in spring. “Zero Covid” has cost the city’s... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3200362/we-have-leave-now-how-we-strolled-out-covid-hit-shanghai-art-fair-dodging-lockdown-and-quarantine?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3200362/we-have-leave-now-how-we-strolled-out-covid-hit-shanghai-art-fair-dodging-lockdown-and-quarantine?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 21 Nov 2022 10:15:13 +0000 In 2005, the then 30-year-old artist Chen Lingyang made an artwork called Fill in the Blanks – two pieces of paper, one bright red, which included the words: “Chen Lingyang was married as of December 31st, 2004. Chen Lingyang will retire from the arts world.” For years, she kept her word. The artist best known for Twelve Flower Months (1999-2000) – a delicate photographic documentation of her own menstruation, now in the collection of the M+ museum in Hong Kong – left China in 2005 with her... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3195564/how-chinese-artist-alice-chen-gave-shanghai-creatives-hope?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3195564/how-chinese-artist-alice-chen-gave-shanghai-creatives-hope?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 13 Oct 2022 03:15:14 +0000 Shanghai and Beijing’s art districts have seen a flurry of activity as galleries are bustling to resume exhibition schedules suspended by spring Covid-19 lockdowns. However, with capacity limits and the need for visitors’ recent negative PCR results to be verified before entry, and with up to 40 per cent of Shanghai’s art venues not fully open to the public, China’s art market, one of the world’s most important, faces a tough recovery. Most Shanghai spaces were shut from mid-March until... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3188475/will-chinas-art-market-and-exhibition-scene-recover-any-time?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3188475/will-chinas-art-market-and-exhibition-scene-recover-any-time?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 11 Aug 2022 03:15:13 +0000 Only by mainland China standards could a city of nearly eight million be considered small. But despite a tech explosion’s gentrification that has made Hangzhou one of the country’s most expensive cities, the Zhejiang provincial capital, surrounded by pristine mountains and spotted with tranquil parks, still manages to feel bucolic. Denizens have been lake gazing, tea drinking and art making since AD589, and the city rose to prominence 30 years later, when it became the terminus of the Grand... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3161367/investment-art-thats-helping-hangzhou-emerge?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/3161367/investment-art-thats-helping-hangzhou-emerge?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 02 Jan 2022 02:15:13 +0000 Shanghai’s November art season, centred on the massive art fairs Art021 and West Bund Art & Design, set off an annual explosion of hundreds of art events around the city last week. The main fairs, back to full capacity despite mainland China’s continuing restrictions on overseas arrivals, reported healthy sales, albeit lacking quite the exuberance of last year’s post-lockdown editions. There was unease caused by intensified government censorship at the fairs, according to some galleries... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3156518/andy-warhol-shara-hughes-and-chinese-artists-chen-wei-nabuqi?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3156518/andy-warhol-shara-hughes-and-chinese-artists-chen-wei-nabuqi?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 21 Nov 2021 07:15:14 +0000 A careful read of the text on the walls of the inaugural exhibition at UCCA Edge in Shanghai reveals several discreet mentions of an irreverently named group exhibition curated by Ai Weiwei and Feng Boyi in 2000 that was a belligerent alternative to the well-funded Shanghai Biennale held concurrently that autumn. That provocative show is among the sources drawn upon by the newly opened Shanghai branch of Beijing art institution UCCA for its show “City on the Edge: Art and Shanghai at the Turn of... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3136008/good-range-21st-century-chinese-art-why-it-nearly-all-men?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3136008/good-range-21st-century-chinese-art-why-it-nearly-all-men?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 04 Jun 2021 07:15:05 +0000 Pandemic-era biennales are bound to have detours and tributaries, like rivulets fanning across parched land when the rain arrives after a long drought. The main exhibition of the 13th Shanghai Biennale, called “Bodies of Water”, has just opened at the Power Station of Art (PSA) after a near six-month delay. It is smaller than its recent predecessors and builds upon public forums held during the intended opening dates last November and an ongoing series of academic projects. The biennale is... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3130864/water-themed-shanghai-biennale-feels-diluted-satellite-art?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3130864/water-themed-shanghai-biennale-feels-diluted-satellite-art?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 24 Apr 2021 07:15:16 +0000 A certain ambivalence often surrounds shows of female artists’ work in China. Exhibitions are overwhelmingly male by default, but women often resist the tokenism and pigeonholing that may result when they are grouped together by gender. Add to that the fact that women’s rights remains a sensitive topic and overt protests are discouraged by the authorities. Still, women-only exhibitions can be opportunities for emerging artists to gain public exposure. That is doubly true in photography,... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3128962/chinese-women-photographers-given-stage-their-work-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/article/3128962/chinese-women-photographers-given-stage-their-work-shanghai?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 11 Apr 2021 04:15:07 +0000 IGO Synth Love (Modern Sky) Be it in fashion or music, in the west or Asia, retro is the new wave. Out of Shanghai, that trend is declared by Synth Love, the debut from pop pair IGO. Sung in semi-sensical English, the 10 tracks blend 1980s synthesiser nostalgia with contemporary electronica sensibilities. The result channels Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode for a sound that is catchy, engaging and danceable. IGO, formed in 2006, comprise vocalist J Jay (Wu Jianjing) and synthesizerist B6... https://www.scmp.com/article/613354/igo?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/article/613354/igo?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:00:00 +0000