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Since the early 1990s, Shanghai has been one of the world's fasting-changing cities. The exhibition "Shanghai Kaleidoscope," which we are organizing for the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto, will examine the way that China's leading metropolis has emerged as a laboratory for the new high-speed, high-density urban culture that is taking shape in 21st-century Asia. Opening in May 2008 in a spectacular new contemporary wing designed for the ROM by Daniel Libeskind, the exhibition will explore contemporary Shanghai through four of its most visible facets: urbanism, art, fashion, and cinema. Our talk this evening provides a glimpse of some of the features of present-day Shanghai that we find most compelling. The physical transformation of Shanghai since the early 1990s has been astonishing. As in a fast-motion film, a forest of more than 1,000 skyscrapers has shot up, a subway system has been constructed, and an ultramodern international airport (designed by Paul Andreu) has opened. New bridges and tunnels have linked the Bund's classic 19th-century waterfront with the futuristic Pudong financial district across the Huangpu River, where the world's tallest building is currently under construction. By the end of 2005, Shanghai's port will be the largest in the world. By 2010, the city's master plan calls for the transformation of Shanghai into an advanced international metropolis: a commercial hub linking domestic and foreign businesses, a financial center for China's stock and commodities markets, and a tourist attraction drawing millions of visitors each year. Not content to be the incubator of the country's consumer trends, Shanghai is also re-creating itself as a city of high culture. Museums of art and science are being built, performance halls for theater, music, and dance are being inaugurated, and university facilities are being constantly expanded. The metropolis that is emerging from this frenzy of activity is a study in dramatic architectural contrasts. The older sections of central Shanghai remain a maze of narrow, meandering streets, yet even these quarters are now dominated by looming high-rise towers. Brilliantly flashing neon signs still illuminate the city at night, but these have now been technologically superceded by wired skyscraper facades that light up in programmable displays of changing electronic hues. The World Expo scheduled for Shanghai in 2010 has spurred a wave of ambitious new building and urban design projects, ensuring that the city will furnish a continuing spectacle of nonstop demolition and construction. A particularly vibrant contemporary art scene has arisen in the city since the mid-1990s, when younger artists like Xu Zhen, Yang Fudong, and Yang Zhenzhong began to organize informal groups and to hold independent, often fleeting exhibitions in marginal spaces. Several of these artists have now established international reputations. Much of the recent art made in Shanghai reflects the fluctuation of immediate experience in a perpetually changing urban environment. Overall, Shanghai's visual artists stand apart by virtue of their distinctive individuality and their tendency to work across a range of mediums, including painting, installation, photography, and video. Shanghai's inhabitants have traditionally enjoyed a reputation as China's most sophisticated and stylishly attired. The historic home of the Chinese textiles industry, Shanghai has in recent decades become a global center for the manufacture of clothing for foreign companies. Increasing prosperity and a new emphasis on personal individuality and refined taste have sparked a growing interest in fashion among younger Chinese. While the 1990s saw the arrival of European designer boutiques in Shanghai, it is now home-grown designers such as Lu Kun, Wang YiYang, and Zhang Da who are creating a lively Chinese fashion scene. As a result, Shanghai has become the focal point of China's burgeoning fashion industry. Our exhibition will show how these distinctive currents are creating a distinctive 21st- century urban sensibility in Shanghai that promises to have an enormous impact not only in Asia but also around the world. Christopher Phillips and Sally Wu |
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