Moganshan Lu, Shanghai

So this weekend, I went to Shanghai again. Honestly considering there is a large art school in Hangzhou, there are surprisingly few contemporary art galleries, I can count two at best. Perhaps this will raise some ire, but when I say contemporary, I am not referring to anything being made now, but art that bears a specific connection to the current times, specifically- so I do exclude traditional painting from "contemporary art" (regardless of the skill exhibited and when its made) unless its meaning or subject matter are tied into something specifically of our time. I might like it, in a purely visual manner, but I tend to think about it more as craft. Anyway, this is not to say there aren't a plethora of galleries in Hangzhou, mostly exhibiting traditional Chinese painting and calligraphy, and of course the ubiquitous and nauseating impressionism that is usually saturated with flowers/autumn leaves/thick paint daubs/french cafes/what have you. And although the China Academy of Art seems to have speakers and guests from the "contemporary" art-world, I can never understand the flyers that are posted around here, so I tend to miss out on a lot of that stuff. In fact I really need to meet some of the people in the "Experimental Art Department" here, since there doesn't seem to be an overground scene I can find. Ok that tangent being said and done, the main area for galleries in Shanghai (basically the Chelsea of Shanghai) is Moganshan Lu. Within this street, there is a large area of converted warehouses that is called M Art Center. There are A LOT of galleries here, ranging from good to bad. Most of the ones in this complex do not allow pictures unfortunately, but maybe that will just spare you seeing some bad artwork. Well some was good. But the Shanghai art scene is pretty interesting, and still developing of course. I did not see much evidence of censorship- there seemed to be a fair amount of stuff referring to communism and nudity (not always together :)) but really it wasn't exactly testing the censors patience either so I dunno. From what I have heard Shanghai's art scene is much more commercial than Beijing's and some notorious features are : lots of paintings of Chinese with big eyes (Zhang Xiaogang), lots of empty references to Mao/communism just as a sort of style statement, etc. Anyway, I've included some pics so make up your own minds.

M Art Center courtyard