Shanghai aims to become the world’s next art capital

Shanghai. The latest surprise comes from Giorgio Morandi. The painter of silent bottles, suspended still lifes and endless variations on the same theme has become one of the Italian artists most loved by the Chinese public. At the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP), the new museum designed by Jean Nouvel on the eastern bank of the Huangpu, ‘Giorgio Morandi. Solo’ (curated by Lorenzo Balbi, director of MAMbo and the Morandi Museum, and by Francesco D’Arelli, director of the Italian Cultural Institute in Shanghai), is the largest retrospective ever dedicated to the artist outside Italy and the first monographic exhibition in China. Over 140 works showcase an artist who, in a country of gigantism and megacities, wins people over precisely through silence. This is, perhaps, the most intriguing paradox of contemporary Shanghai: Asia’s fastest-paced metropolis has chosen the painter of slowness as its favourite.

Shanghai bears less and less resemblance to the ‘world’s factory’ and increasingly resembles the ‘Asian New York’ it has aspired to be for years – not merely because of the density of its skyscrapers or the financial capital circulating there, but because of the speed with which it is establishing cultural institutions destined to enter the international art scene. Within the space of a few years, museums designed by star architects have sprung up, alongside private foundations funded by billionaires, creative districts converted from old textile factories, experimental galleries and collections capable of rivalling their Western counterparts. The MAP is perhaps the most striking symbol of this strategy. Jean Nouvel (who is also much loved in Arab countries, where he continues to design museums) conceived it as a sculpture of white granite and glass overlooking the Bund, almost like a theatrical backdrop reflecting the Huangpu River. Alongside the public museums, however, the influence of private institutions is growing, most notably the Long Museum, founded by collectors Liu Yiqian and Wang Wei, where, until 25 October, the artist Wallace Chan is presenting his solo exhibition "Vessels of Other Worlds", one of the most ambitious exhibitions of the year.

Starting out as a goldsmith and inventor of new techniques for working with titanium and gemstones, this ‘artist without a gallery’, as he describes himself, creates monumental metal vases that resemble living organisms. Tens of thousands of screws, mirrored surfaces, human figures and mythological creatures transform his sculpture into an immersive experience that engages in real time with Venice, where a sister exhibition is being held in the Cappella della Pietà during the 61st Venice Biennale. The Prada Foundation has also chosen Shanghai for its new Chinese headquarters, just a stone’s throw from Mao Zedong’s house-museum in the Jing’an district, where international luxury coexists with sites of revolutionary memory. Not far away lies the M50, a former industrial district on Moganshan Road that retains the atmosphere of places still in the making, populated by artists’ studios, graffiti, small independent galleries and workshops. It is the equivalent of Beijing’s 798, but less institutionalised and more spontaneous – at least on the surface. Here, painters, photographers, digital artists and designers coexist in a constant balancing act between creativity and control, such as Luca Rizzi Brignoli, who has opened the headquarters of his studio, V10, there with his partner Fang Zhou. On the Bund, meanwhile, the Rockbund Art Museum continues to present a surprisingly sophisticated programme, including ‘Ludwig’ by Diego Marcon, a video installation blending cinema and fairy tale that was previously shown at the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan. Opposite the entrance to the main building are the premises of the Perrotin and Lisson galleries; not far away is MOCA Shanghai, which continues to host major names in the international art world, whilst the exhibition dedicated to Giacometti at the Mingsheng Art Museum – another tribute to an Italian here in China (recently, at the Dongjingyuan Temple in Beijing, Pietro Ruffo opened his exhibition featuring works from the cycle The Flowers of Time) – are attracting visitor numbers that many European museums can only dream of (540,000 visitors for the Palladio exhibition). The art market is following the same trajectory, with private collectors acquiring Western artworks with increasing ease, whilst 20th-century Italian artists are enjoying unexpected success.

All this takes place against the backdrop of one of the most sophisticated contradictions of our time. Creative freedom seems to have never been so extensive; investment is enormous; museums are proliferating; artists are experimenting with materials, technologies and artistic languages; yet all this occurs within a regime that continues to exercise strict control over information, dissent and, when necessary, even art. In Shanghai, the Communist Party rarely makes its presence felt in a conspicuous way; it has no need to, because it is embedded in the administrative structure, in the authorisations, in the implicit restrictions, in self-censorship and in the invisible boundaries that every artist knows all too well. Works may be radical in form, but far less so politically, and experimentation is encouraged as long as it does not challenge the system. Even foreign visitors sense this atmosphere. Very few people speak English; the Western internet connection is patchy; many apps are unusable without specific tools (without Alipay you can’t do anything, not even book a taxi); and the city constantly gives the impression of existing within an autonomous, parallel, almost impervious ecosystem. Chinese modernity does not coincide with its Western counterpart: it encompasses it, reworks it and ultimately bends it to its own rules, but it is, perhaps, precisely this tension that makes Shanghai one of the most interesting places of our time – a city that produces aesthetic freedom within a political system that is wary of freedom. A laboratory where contemporary art is flourishing, whilst those in power continue to remind us, silently, who sets the limits of the imagination.