ShanghART today is regarded as the finest and most innovative gallery to visit in China. As a gallery, producer, supporter, and point of reference ShanghART contributes as a vital resource to the development of contemporary Chinese art. The gallery has grown to become a point of departure for art enthusiasts world-wide, but also for international collectors, curators, and critics. Perhaps, more importantly, the gallery has been instrumental in building an infrastructure in China that has generated an increasing number of art spaces for generations of new artists to hold exhibitions, curators to discover them, and, finally, collectors to buy their work.

Over the course of the past decade, ShanghART Gallery has acquired a substantial reputation for artistic innovation, integrity and high quality in dealing with contemporary Chinese art. The gallery was initiated in 1996 in a humble space at the Portman Ritz Carlton Hotel and has since grown to become one of China’s most influential contemporary art institutions. ShanghART has established itself as a leading gallery representing established figures whilst continuing to support the work of tlented younger artists. As all visionary and great galleries, ShanghART is a place for innovation as well as permanence: The gallery discovers artists, nurture them, and stand by them in bad times as well as promote them in good times. We organize exhibitions, often necessitating substantial investment in the production of new works, and provide space for the art to be rarified by a constituency of visiting curators, critics, and collectors. To win on both levels (innovation and permanence), ShanghART is faced with the very real request of sufficient top quality art works for exhibit and sale.

Since its inauguration the gallery has established more than 100 exhibitions, and it enjoys the great respect of being among the 75 international galleries selected in Thames & Hudson’s publication ‘International Art Galleries’ that features the most acclaimed galleries from post-war to post-millennium (2005). The gallery also was the first Chinese gallery to exhibit at the most highly acclaimed art fair, Art Basel, and is now regularly attending the art fair in Basel, Art Basel Miami Beach, FIAC Paris, ARCO Madrid, ARTissima Torino, and new-comers like HK Artfair, Showcase Singapore and DIVA New York, as well as Chinese versions in Shanghai and Beijing. Additionally, our artists are continuously invited to participate in solo and group-exhibitions at prestigious art institutions globally, including all major biennales like Venice, Sao Paulo, and Sydney. Works has been aquired by MoMa NY, TATE London… and private collections like …?

Today Shanghart occupies four spaces in Shanghai and Beijing, and represents over 40 of China’s most talented artists working with different media ranging from painting and sculpture to video art and performance. Situated at 50 Moganshan Road, which has developed to become Shanghai’s artistic centre, the main gallery (bldg 16) serves as a show room for displays of artworks and smaller exhibitions, while the larger H-Space (bldg 18) works as a flexible white-cube exhibition hall for the display of extensive shows and grand scale projects. Lately, foreign curators have been invited to create exhibitions here. In 2007 the gallery opened its new F-Space to provide a venue for experimental artistic thinking and practice dedicated to young artist. And in February 2008 ShanghART launched its new gallery space in Beijing. Finally then, this month our new space will be inaugurated here at Hui Hui Road – a space that will epitomize all great things about ShanghART Gallery. Apart from a series of changing solo and group exhibitions by established stars as well as young experimental artists, the gallery will feature a Videotheque showing more than 200 films and video art by 20 artists.