Sign In

X

West Bund Art + Design: Report From The Ground

Tuesday's West Bund Design & Art Fair opening pulled together galleries, media, luxury accessories, champagne brands, designer products, and attendees from all walks of life in a two-floor, aircra...
Last updated: 2015-11-09

Tuesday's West Bund Design & Art Fair opening pulled together galleries, media, luxury accessories, champagne brands, designer products, and attendees from all walks of life in a two-floor, aircraft-factory-turned-art-space that feels a bit constrained when packed with over 30 domestic and international gallery booths. Pretty tame, overall, but not without merit.

Those galleries include Shanghai's BANK, Don Gallery, and Leo Xu Projects, Beijing's Magician Space and Pace Gallery, and internationals like UK's Ben Brown Fine Arts. Each gallery brought a couple of their representative works and a few mildly enthusiastic staff, and while the whole event has plenty to browse, it's not the most thought-provoking. After all, it's just an ordinary art and design fair, and art fairs exist solely to sell art.


Just next door, Shanghai design group/agency Undef/NE (the same folks behind Brew & Blend festival) have set up camp with their TURN THE PAGE, right beside West Bund Art Center. Their black-and-white-themed space features art installations, a coffee shop, designer shop, and a mysterious dark room in which you can draw anything on a card and see how it turns out as a scatter of stars.

While it's not worth the trip to the West Bund and the 40rmb entrance just to see this fair, you could combine this with an afternoon in the area checking out the Rain Room and YUZ' other offerings, the new photo exhibition Grain to Pixel - A Story of Photography in China at SCôP, and hop on the official bus to see Wang Yuyang - Tonight, I Shall Mediate on That Which I Am at Long Museum. That would be a better plan.

West Bund Art + Design runs through Sunday, Sept 12 at the West Bund Art Center. Tickets are 40rmb. All photos by Brandon McGhee.

TELL EVERYONE