Welcome back to the Shanghai Exhibition Centre (上海展览中心), otherwise known as the Sino-Soviet Friendship Building (中苏友好大厦), a Stalinist wedding cake from 1955. Once upon a time it was home to ShContemporary (2007-2014), a much vaunted contemporary art fair launched by former Basel director Lorenzo Rudolf and Italy’s Bologna Fiere. Lorenzo left (he now directs Art Stage, Singapore and Jakarta), then there was an economic crisis, taxes on imported art remained high, Bologna Fiere didn’t look after its local connections properly, and then it died rather miserably. Never mind. 2013 saw the launch of a new, boutique fair called ART021, owned by young collectors Kelly Ying, David Chau, and Bao Yifeng. Two years later, ART021 had outgrown its home on the Bund and moved…to the Shanghai Exhibition Centre (ha!).

Beyond economic impetus, there are essentially two reasons why the Chinese art market has grown so mightily. The first is China’s ancient history of art appreciation and culture of collecting. By comparison, look at South East Asia—including Hong Kong—where the culture of collecting is a far more recent phenomenon and even then often imported from China. Secondly, the broad ambition of the Chinese art world is remarkable. Whether we are talking about artists, collectors, curators, or gallerists, China wants to be a player on the world scene. Building networks is also intrinsic to Chinese society (the word “guanxi” is increasingly used in English). So China has the means, resources, scale, and—crucially—the intention to pursue its ambitions, be it building museums, sponsoring foreign institutions (K11 with Palais de Tokyo in Paris, the ICA in London and MoMA PS1 in New York), or launching an art fair.

ART021 has grown but also matured. Thomas Wüstenhagen, the director, has succeeded in developing the fair, ensuring a good mix of local and international galleries, big and small. Display is more crowded than at West Bund, but it works. ART021 definitely has more bling (including gold bling)! But prices are also generally lower than West Bund and visitors generally younger (ART021 is also more crowded). This is the first time the two shows have coincided. Both pragmatically moved their opening dates to coincide with the Shanghai Biennale. It is too early to say exactly how the dynamic in this ménage à trois played out (whether or not one member was left feeling hurt) but Ran Dian thinks ART021 and West Bund are very effective foils for one another, and we hope the model succeeds. No where else do two major art fairs go head to head in the same city at the same time.

Geng Jianyi “Untitled 11″ (2015) at ShanghART, which resonated with Chen Zhe’s “Remembering the Forgotten, Forgetting the Remembered (Revisiting the Bearable)” (2012) at the Shanghai Biannale

Geng Jianyi has a show at OCAT Shanghai and ShanghART showed his “Untitled 11″, a video cabinet of curiosities. Non-objective photographer Liu Yue is becoming a regular at ShanghART booths and deserves more attention. Galleria Continua highlighted a reclining figure from Hans Op de Beeck‘s “The Collector’s House” installation, which received so much attention at Art Unlimited in June, and works by Kiwon Park, who currently has a show at their Beijing gallery. Highlights from David Zwirner included paintings by Luc Tuymans (already well known in China), vitrines by Sherrie Levine, and new “negative” still lifes by Thomas Ruff. Another international gallery that showed simultaneously at West Bund and ART021 was Esther Schipper. As usual Schipper had one of the most aesthetic and rigorous displays, including numerous international starts whom have not yet received as much attention in China as perhaps they deserve, including Liam Gillick, whose sliding doors definitely have more attention now.

A number of Chinese galleries made strong abstract painting displays. A Thousand Plateaus (Chengdu) brought mainly abstract works, including by Wang Jun (b.1974) and a giant work by Yang Shu (b.1965). PIFO Gallery (Beijing) had a really beautiful display of Wang Chuan and Enrico Bach, (and proving China-West displays can be much more than just a gimmick). Finally, Taiwan’s A+ Contemporary showed Chen Xi, He Xun, Jiang Cheng and sculpture by He Yida, who currently has a terrific solo show at A+ in Shanghai’s M50 art compound. Beijing’s White Space displayed Li Shurui, whom the gallery has long represented. Shanghai’s Matthew Liu Fine Art exhibited an intriguing small mixed-media abstract/landscape work by Yin Zhaoyang. It would be good to see more.

One of the strongest local displays was Hive Center for Contemporary Art, among others with a striking painting/sculpture installation by Zhou Li and austere but playful photography by Liu Guoqiang.

One of the best stands, with interesting things around every corner, was Hive Center of Contemporary Art, from Beijing, here with Zhou Li

Yu Ji‘s decapitated torso “Flesh in Stone Component 2#” was a highlight at Beijing Commune, but not the only one. Yang Xinguang‘s “Golden H-No.3f” received a lot of attention and sold quickly, while Liang Shuo‘s small recycling constructions also sold. MadeIn gallery showed works by Lu Pingyuan, Miao Ying and Xu Zhen (of course!). Shang Liang‘s Pinocchio-bodybuilder painting, “The Real Boy No.9″, was brilliantly paired with a Buddha-Africa cross-breed by Xu Zhen. Galerie Nächst St. Stephan Rosemarie Schwarzwälder from Vienna sold a major painting by Ying Miao. The gallery also brought substantial works by Herbert Brandl and Romanian artist Daniel Knorr, who will participate in documenta next year. A highlight at Long March Space was Zhou Xiaohu‘s “No.9″ (2016), a laser-etched “painting” and Wang Sishun‘s bronze “Apocalypse” heads. Hong Kong’s Edouard Malingue Gallery has just opened a new gallery in Shanghai (just above MadeIn’s Xu Zhen Store at Longteng Avenue, West Bund). At ART021, the gallery shoed a very good Eric Baudart repurposes sun umbrella, “paraSols p002″ (2016). At Arario (Seoul, Shanghai), a small vitrine figurative sculpture be Lee Dongwook was eye-catching but further inside the booth was something even better, Yan Heng‘s painting-installation, “Civilization 1- Ewe” (2015-2016).

Tang Contemporary once again had a strong display, including Chen Shaoxiong (1962-2016) and a terrific “Sky” painting by Zhao Zhao. Beijing’s Gallery Yang, which recently moved from Caochangdi to 798 art district, gave Shanghai’s aaajiao a mini-multimedia solo show.

Galerie Krinzinger presented major works by Zhang Ding—golden cups and chopsticks for everyone—and Thomas Zipp, who also has a show at David Chao’s new Cc Foundation space at M50. More gold, lots more gold in fact, like really a LOT OF GOLD, was at Galerie Perrotin. Pragmatic? Problematic? Market oriented? Cynical? Well, it worked.

In video, Boers–Li Gallery showed Zhang Peili and Vitamin Creative Space showed a new shadow-animation film by Cao Fei. Leo Xu Projects again showed Pixy Liao, not just the video but also the backpack, which is surprisingly confronting!

It was a lot of fun attending ART021. It was fun walking around, fun exploring its labyrinthine corners and mezzanine flyovers. A couple of times I heard and read snobbish (sour?) comments about quality, as if anything that wasn’t Basel isn’t Basel. This is ridiculous. ART021 has proven it’s a successful fair–including sales, display, and organisation–and that it has a strong foundation (and network) upon which to build. Taxes are the one thing that needs to be addressed. Sure, you can have an art fair without international galleries, but it would be less interesting and the competition is good for the local scene anyway. And at the end of the day, it is noteworthy that despite government support, low taxes, efficient logistics, and arguably the best freeport in the world, Singapore still hasn’t managed to succeed, whereas Shanghai keeps raising the bar. Interesting.