On Sunday I paid a visit to the artsy M50 district, not even realizing there is a planned field trip. However, given the recent events I was not able to attend so it actually worked itself out quite nicely.
M50 offers diverse art studios, galleries, as well as shops and itself as a whole creates an environment unique in Shanghai. Since I visited on Sunday, the place seemed to be deserted though I am hearing the same from the classmates that went on a weekday. Given that, it seems that despite its attractiveness as a tourist place to visit, urbanistically M50 did not create what it probably sought to. In my view, the neighbourhood is missing a space that attracts people to come back – for instance an outdoor cafe, great street food etc. After visiting all the galleries, there is simply no reason to come back. In addition, the prices in the only cafe we found were significantly higher compared to the street outlets dispersed in the city. In short, M50 is a tourist attraction and not the urban space it should aspire to create.
The first space I wandered into was a promising Art Deco gallery which turned out to be more just like a furniture shop. However, when I have my own place I am definitely coming back for this wonderful sitting setting. The beauty of the table lies in its functionality and decent extravagancy despite its symmetry.
However, my absolute favourite were the works of the platform Island6. Their relative dominance in the district is underlined by the fact that there are actually two separate buildings dedicated to Island6. I firstly discovered the smaller one-room gallery, which was far less interactive than the larger two-storey one. I am no expert to define the signature style of Island6 is, however, projecting a layer that completely changes the perception of the background (or the other way around) was a repeated motif. It is perhaps best seen in the work called “I Dream just of Dollars“. The background is formed by financial/accounting statements on which a symbol of innocence is projected.
Another piece I have really liked highlights another typical feature of Island6’s projects – interaction though noticing a human/visitor. While the actual artist’s intention could have been very different, the way I interpreted the piece is that it creates a suicide scene – the painting represents the crowd below, the platform something high enough, and the encouraging screams go “jump, jump, jump.” (It is more likely the crowd says something completely different and in Chinese). The artwork captures the sad reality of today’s world, in which people are more likely to focus on recording the happening on Snapchat rather than trying to save a life.
This last artwork woken up a question in me regarding the uniqueness of the contemporary art. In my view, we should celebrate the idea and the message behind some of the pieces as they are incredibly easy to replicate and for personal purposes without any copyright infringement (to my best knowledge). Perhaps too cynically, the platform is nothing extraordinary, the painting can be easily substituted by a different crowd, human-detect sensors are readily available, not to mention an availability of some speakers. In fact, some artists already created multiple copies of one artwork.
I conclude the post with another two pieces I really liked.
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