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Vying for the throne of the premier art fair in Shanghai are September’s West Bund Art & Design and the privately funded Art 021 in November, both having held their inaugural editions over fall of 2014. The earlier is one of the major events in the annual art calendar of the “West Bund Cultural Corridor” project—an arts cluster to the south of the city and west of the Huangpu river that includes the private institutions Yuz Museum Shanghai and Long Museum West Bund, 9,000 and 33,000 square meters in construction area respectively—spearheaded by the eponymous developer. During the week of the fair’s second edition, adjacent to the West Bund Art Center where the event was held, ShanghArt Gallery also unveiled its West Bund space (the gallery’s fourth venue in Shanghai, in addition to its Beijing and Singapore branches) with a solo show by Chinese conceptualist Geng Jianyi, and Qiao Space, owned by Chinese collector Qiao Zhibing, presented an exhibition of paintings by Polish artist Wilhelm Sasnal in collaboration with Hauser & Wirth (London/Zurich). Hosting a total of 32 art galleries and 8 design studios from all over the world with a marked concentration of China-based spaces, West Bund Art & Design offered spacious booths and lofty ceilings, which made for a very pleasant viewing—and hopefully for some, buying—experience.
West Bund Art & Design is on at the West Bund Art Center, Shanghai, until September 13, 2015.
Denise Chu is managing editor at ArtAsiaPacific.