The New City

Chris Gill Exhibits 'City of Gold' at the Shanghai Art Museum - By Melanie, Nov 21, 07

If you've ever felt momentarily paralyzed by the stampede of Xujiahui's thundering consumer madness, you could probably hazard a guess as to why locally-based artist Chris Gill refers to Shanghai as a "City of Gold" in his show at the Shanghai Art Museum. British by birth and trained as a printmaker, Gill has spent the past 18 years developing his art in China, watching the country transform from a populace donning "Mao suits" to a place where "individual worth is measured by money and through comparisons with the highest tiers of capitalist society."

Gill's exhibit features enormous oil on canvas depictions of the rapidly changing city, marked by the artist's perceived relationship between Shanghai's recent evolution and the female figure. Shanghai's sprouting skyscrapers parallel the society's demand for its female inhabitants to embody what Gill calls "a new shape." Gill believes this ideal is being "forced upon women" and is a "largely local phenomenon that may have some origins in Korean culture."

A number of the works, including "The new city #1" and "The new city #2," depict bikini-clad figures in the foreground of the burgeoning metropolis. In #1, the female figure is little more than a black outline – the outline's transparency suggests that her entire substance is comprised of external factors emanating from city behind her. The new city #2 is similarly themed. A larger-than-life female with pale skin, chic haircut, face largely concealed by sunglasses and body barely concealed by bikini offsets the nighttime vision of glittering skyscrapers and swooping aircrafts. The absurdity of modeling a bathing suit in the midst of a concrete existence emphasizes the physical pressures placed on the individual in new Shanghai.

Time and experience have shown Gill that "people prefer to mold themselves to fit the 'norm' of the new society as they are projected in fashion magazines, on the Internet and in popular TV shows. Some go so far as to change themselves physically so they can conform. Plastic surgeons have never been in higher demand."

Unlike many foreign artists, Gill arrived in China nearly two decades ago to develop his artistic aptitude, rather than to market it. At the moment, Gill works out of a studio at 696 Weihei Lu. Compared to Moganshan Lu, which Gill believes has "become something of a supermarket," Weihei Lu is a quiet, secluded artist's haven. Earlier this year, a rumor surfaced that the government would refuse to renew the artists' lease at 696 because of plans to demolish and rebuild the valuable property. As a result of protest from the outside art community as well as "thirty of us making noise," Gill reports that the artists have just signed another two-year lease – a somewhat startling result.

This surprising victory for the artists on Weihei Lu suggests that despite the pitfalls of consumer culture, China might be embracing some changes that are not all bad – changes that come from the ground up rather than be decreed from on high. It's refreshing that the first exhibit in the Shanghai Art Museum by a foreign artist offers a serious critique of society at large. Recognizing the contradictions inherent in this developing country, Gill notes that he is "constantly thrilled and surprised by the variety of new themes and concepts that emerge in daily life."

"City of Gold," runs from Nov. 17 to Nov. 26 at the Shanghai Art Museum. Images of Chris Gill's paintings were taken from his image blog at www.shanghaieye.net. Head over for more info and images by other artists of 696 Weihai Lu.

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