Cultural Evolution

Not so long ago, visitors to China were told to go to Beijing for culture, and Shanghai for style. And while that was naturally a generalization, it was easy to see the reasoning. Beijing, after all, has the palaces and the history. Beijing also has one of the coolest arts quarters in the world in the form of 798 — the East German–built military factory complex now transformed into a thriving community of painters, sculptors and designers (not to mention trend-seeking tourists desperate for a taste of China’s SoHo).

In a boom economy, however, things change fast. Shanghai still has glam in spades. You can sip your Cosmopolitan on the Bund while gazing out at a relentlessly rising skyline. You can wander along the leafy boulevards of the former French Concession, pausing for a soy latte or a therapeutic browse in one of the fancy clothes shops on Hengshan Road. But now you can do art, too. Springing up amid the gleaming, dreaming towers are studios and galleries, large and small, testifying to the fact that where money grows, culture follows. Here are some of our favorites:

Museum of Contemporary Art
Nestling amid the trees and ponds of People’s Park, the dramatic glass Museum of Contemporary Art, www.mocashanghai.org, opened two years ago and is the first privately owned, nonprofit contemporary art museum in the city. And boy is it contemporary. Screens flickering with slick animation created from images of old Shanghai; video projections that shift from fish to pebbles to branches; a roomful of storyboards inspired by manga — when I was there, these were all part of an exhibition tying in with Shanghai eArts, the biggest digital-arts festival in the world. Call in at the café for a spot of refueling, then stroll through the park, where you can observe murmuring groups of matchmaking parents.

50 Moganshan Road
Shanghai’s answer to Beijing’s 798 is 50 Moganshan Road, or simply M50 — one of the main cooking pots of the city’s art. This rabbit’s warren of former factories and warehouses is situated on the banks of Suzhou Creek, and was first used as studio space in 2000. Now it’s teeming with artists, curators, collectors and hip young students, as well as curious foreigners. It also houses the local branch of the Beijing Art Now Gallery, www.artnow.cn, which opened at the beginning of the year and like its parent is tasked with identifying the very best contemporary Chinese art for major museum buyers. Be warned though: while the interiors at M50 may look rough and industrial, neither the art nor the coffee and cake in the piazza come cheap.

Refined Nest Gallery
With its former factory location, bright pink pillars, green floors and some sumptuously curvaceous green sofas that look like they might be sculptures in their own right, the Ya Chao or Refined Nest Gallery, www.yachaogallery.com, is almost a parody of a funky art space. It specializes in Chinese contemporary art — Chen Feng, Han Jia Quan, Pan Wei, Liu Xuguang, Qu Fengguo, Cai Bing — but also deals in artists from the New Chinese fine arts movement of 1950 to 1979.

Contrasts Gallery
A pioneer of the city’s gallery scene, Contrasts, www.contrastsgallery.com, was opened in 1992, just three years after government clampdowns on avant-garde artists (and that little blip at Tiananmen Square). It’s owned and run by the Hong Kong–born entrepreneur, Pearl Lam. Her aim is to celebrate the best in Chinese modern art while exploring its relationship with 5,000 years of the country’s artistic tradition. You can see some of the hottest names there — Sun Liang, Yang Bo, Chen Yun, Shao Fan and Hu Youben among them. Classy, collectible stuff — if you’re rich.