Festival gives city’s art lovers something to celebrate

Director of BANK Mathieu Borysevicz talks to guests at the opening ceremony of Art in the City. Photo: Courtesy of Effie Sui

Art in the City, an art festival organized in collaboration with K11 Art Mall and supported by the Consulate General of Italy in Shanghai, opened Wednesday in the chi K11 art museum.

The festival features a range of works that juxtapose the new and the traditional to celebrate the city's outstanding achievements in art and design.

The festival's main feature is an exhibit entitled Beauty Makes Perfect. The curated show, organized in conjunction with several of Shanghai's most acclaimed galleries, features artworks displayed in staged environments designed by the Shanghai-based Kokai Studios. The environments mix visual arts, design and scenes of daily life into a unified aesthetic experience.

Fifteen local galleries are participating in the event, including Aike-Dellarco, Arario Shanghai, ArtCN, BANK, Don Gallery, FQ Projects, Gallery 55, Hakgojae Shanghai, M Art Center, Mao Space, Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai Gallery of Art, ShanghART, The Gallery and Vanguard.

Ann Niu, an artist from Shanghai whose works are on display, told the Global Times, "I really enjoyed the festival. It feels so young - there are lots of young people here visiting and they bring lots of energy."

Niu's works, presented by ArtCN, depict an abstract series of scholars' stones - shaped or naturally-occurring stones traditionally admired by Chinese scholars. The images, which were created using both vivid and subtle color schemes, combine elements of traditional ink brush painting, calligraphy and poetry. Apart from Niu's paintings, ArtCN is also showing works from the Shikumen Wall Series by Dubravka Vidovic, a Croatia-born artist who turned Shanghai's old shikumen houses and brick walls into art installations.

Another highlight of the festival is its pop-up concept store inspired by Xu Bing's Book from the Ground, a famous graphic novel composed entirely of universally understandable symbols and icons. The black and white decorated store sells products such as t-shirts, jewellery items, tableware, umbrellas and newspapers featuring the symbols created by Xu.

Mathieu Borysevicz, director of BANK, the gallery which brought the store to the event, told the Global Times, "since K11 is a shopping mall, incorporating the pop-up store to the exhibition is site-specific. We also picked black and white artworks from our collection to center around Xu Bing's pop-up store."

The event also features the latest work by Beijing-born painter Zhu Jinshi. Entitled The Lost Botanical Garden, the four-panel oil painting was created using hundreds of spatulas and wooden shovels to help the work achieve an astonishingly sculptural presence. Bold, lyrical colors give the painting a powerful and irresistible allure.

The festival is complemented by a series of talks and discussions intended to connect artists, individuals and institutions. Included on the schedule are a series of lectures on the adaptation of buildings in Shanghai, presented by Kokai Studios. Several of the city's curators will also discuss the development of artist-managed exhibition spaces in Shanghai.

Those looking for further information can download the Art in the City mobile app. The festival will run through Sunday.