Lasse Gebbers Take: “Art Tour on the Bund – The Directors Cut”

I woke up this Saturday morning by the sound of my alarm. Since it was ShanghaiExpat’s 11th Anniversary Party the night before, I didn’t feel all to well and slowly crawled out of bed into my freezing cold room, not the best way to start a Saturday. After a warm shower and a good breakfast things looked better and I felt ready for the day. The reason for this unusual habit of waking up early on a Saturday was an invitation I got for the Art Tour on the Bund – The Directors Cut which is part of the “Art on the Bund” program. Coming from a family of artists, I was very interested to see what Shanghai’s art world has to offer.

I arrived at the Shanghai Gallery of Art at 1:30, where I was surprised by quite a big group of people waiting for the tour to start. It was surprising not only because so many people showed up, but also because the different age groups and nations were something I didn’t expect before. Where I come from it’s usually rather old people with funny scarfs and glasses who go to these events!

Mathieu Borysevicz, who is the director of the gallery, greeted us and, after giving a brief introduction of him and the concept behind the gallery, we started into the first tour of the afternoon. The gallery currently features three different artists, all of whom had different approaches for showcasing problems we face in this ever-changing world.

Mr Borysevicz explained some of the story’s behind the pieces and gave us some info about the artist who made them. The whole idea of this tour is to give the visitors just a small impression of the gallery, not the full tour. So after just 15 minutes we finished and were on our way to the second stop, “Studio Rouge.” Here we were greeted by George Michell, who showed us the exhibition “Geometrics” by Australian artist Tony Scott. The boutique style gallery was crowded by interested visitors, but still you were able to enjoy Scott’s very interesting geometric paintings, and the colours reminded me of his home country.

The group was in a good mood and, while walking to our next destination “Pearl Lam Galleries,” I got to know some of the participants of the tour. Despite their different backgrounds, everyone enjoyed the tour. Window in the Wall was the name of the next exhibition that showcased Indian and Chinese artist next to each other. Each single piece was interesting on it’s own, but the contrast between the cultures and artists made this stop even more interesting.

 

Everyone wished to stay a little longer, but just like before we had to move on. No time to be sad because our next stop, the Around Space Gallery, was just around the corner and welcomed us into their current exhibition Human / Happiness. Like the name implies, it was all about happiness and how it is understood differently all over the world. Talking about the warm cup of tea and small snacks made all of us very happy, since it was freezing cold outside.