Young, Diverse Artists Shine at the 2024 Edition of ART021 Shanghai

At the Shanghai Expo Center, ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair—one of the top fairs in the Chinese art world—concluded its buzzy 12th edition on Sunday during the city’s packed art week.

Observers didn’t need to look far to gauge ART021’s pull for collectors and art lovers alike at the outset of the fair. At its VIP preview on Thursday, a long line of visitors formed outside the venue well before entry opened at 1 p.m. It appeared to show that, despite talk of an economic slowdown in China, the appetite for art remains strong, with the fair consistently busy over its run.

Inside, however, the atmosphere felt less intense. Given the current market conditions, many galleries are making careful choices about which fairs to attend and which works to showcase. This year, the 131 galleries that participated marked a slightly reduced total from last year’s 150.

Diversity on view across the fair

Paintings and wall sculptures priced between $10,000 and $200,000 dominated the booths this year, though a few blue-chip galleries such as David Zwirner stood out with works by Luc Tuymans priced at around $2 million. Tuymans will also soon have a major solo show at Beijing’s UCCA Center for Contemporary Art, adding a sense of anticipation around his presence at the fair.

This year’s edition also brought increased interest in younger, more diverse artists.

Earlier this year, at ART021’s inaugural Hong Kong edition, co-founder David Chau said, amid the increasingly crowded art fair landscape, he wants to set his fairs apart by spotlighting galleries from the Global South, bringing attention to artists from places like Mexico, the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

While the Hong Kong fair had limited time to bring a broadened vision fully to life, the Shanghai edition took a big step further. Its Detour section, a curated program featuring six galleries focused on Asian and diasporic artists, was positioned front and center.

Notable among the Detour galleries were Lawrie Shabibi, Gaotai Gallery, and Tabula Rasa. Dubai-based Lawrie Shabibi, which spotlights young artists from the Middle East and North Africa, made its ART021 debut with a group show of six artists.

Highlights included Asad Faulwell’s works inspired by Persian mythology, where the artist blends archival images to evoke a world of cosmic allure, and Hamra Abbas’s sculptures that explore the historical significance and geographical origin of lapis lazuli in Afghanistan. Seven works had immediately been acquired by a Shanghai-based institutional collection on the first day, including Faulwell’s Soothsayer (2022–24) and six pieces from Abbas’s “Flower Studies” series, priced from $30,000–$40,000 apiece.

Urumqi-based Gaotai Gallery presented a dual exhibition of works by Guzel Zakirova and Hailun Ma. Zakirova, born in Kazakhstan, and Ma, now based in Shanghai, explore femininity through their unique cultural perspectives. Priced from $3,000–$5,000 apiece, works from Ma’s “Darwaz Girls” series in particular drew significant interest across the fair, with two works reserved by a private collector on the first day and additional sales by the fair’s end.

Tabula Rasa, with locations in both Beijing and London, took a different angle, spotlighting diasporic Chinese artists. NFTsaaajiao (2020–21) by aaajiao, an artist who splits his time between Xi’an and Berlin, drew particular attention. The digital artwork features four self-portraits contained within a folder locked by a password only made known to the buyer of the work’s NFT. The original piece was recently acquired by the Centre Pompidou in Paris, where it’s featured in the museum’s first major exhibition of its NFT collections.

Many galleries at ART021 Shanghai also platformed queer artists, showcasing works that subtly address queer themes.

At Shanghai-based NAN KE GALLERY, three male figure paintings by Killion Huang take center stage. Huang, a gay artist who studied at New York’s School of Visual Arts, reflects on his life as a student in the city through these intimate, quietly charged portrayals. While not overtly about gay life, his works hint at a coded desire, capturing a pivotal moment in his journey. Priced from $2,000–$14,000 apiece, four out of six of Huang’s paintings were sold in presale, with two more on hold by the fair’s first day.

In contrast, works by Brooklyn-based Korean American artist Justin Yoon at L.A.’s Yiwei Gallery’s booth evoke classic Hollywood films, American fast food culture, and the glamour and grit of the 1980s. Yoon’s hypermasculine figure paintings celebrate a distinctly queer fantasy, pushing back against the lack of diverse representation of queer Asian men in the U.S. With prices ranging from $3,000–$7,000, the works offer a bold yet nostalgic nod to queer identity and visibility.

Notable sales at ART021 Shanghai Contemporary Art Fair 2024