M50 and Taikang Lu

M50

This past weekend I went to the M50 art district which is basically a former industrial complex packed with galleries, studios and design boutiques. I am happy that I did get to see the famous graffiti wall which is still in tact for now before it is all taken down. What draws me to graffiti and street art is general is that the form is organic, not dictated by markets, the medium has emphasis on taking away visual control of public spaces from corporations and usually the messages are politically charged or indicative of a mood in an environment in a certain place or time. However here the graffiti scene is emergent and more about creating and establishing something cool, modern and relevant and I was very impressed by the variety of styles and breadth of the tags and designs which includes murals bidding farewell to Moganshan Lu.

M50

I have also sadly learnt that the entire industrial complex of M50 galleries will be torn down as well as the wall to make way for redevelopment so I feel really lucky to have been able to see this area and creative space before that happens. It will remain one of my favourite places in Shanghai even when it is long gone.

I attended 3 different openings and as well as enjoying the lovely receptions laid on for those exhibits I got to cram a lot of gallery visits in to one day and see a variety of works.  My current favourites are 'Everyday Frenzies' by the (Island 6) Liu Dao art collective which included LED light installations all made on site in the studio showing a modern more explicit urban environment twist on the traditional shan shui cliffs and rivers of Chinese landscape painting; the group work I saw at the opening of 'Kawaii' featuring cute kitsch quirky modern japanese painting, sculptures, photography and mixed media and really haunting monochrome prints by Feng Fangyu. But my absolute current favourite exhibition is 'Abstract Marks of City' by photographer Guan Yiming. I find his style quite similar to Robert Frank's 'The Americans' - his photography really captures the essence of disparate groups of people representative of modern Shanghai as well as those characters representative of the older generation.

There is a little cafe in the creative garden called Bandu that serves very cheap chinese snack dishes and I had noodles, toasted peanut sandwich and iced coffee all for the cost of about £4 while I took a break from walking round the galleries. The cafe is also a music shop and sells local CDs and sometimes has Chinese band jamming sessions in the evenings which get pretty crowded.

Taikang Lu shop

I also went to Taikang Road which is another place which has a lot of galleries and boutiques with random stuff. You want to buy tourist niknaks with Mao's face on, propaganda posters, ladies of old shanghai postcards, mulitcoloured chopsticks, apparel with scenes of the city or 'I love Shanghai' bits and bobs then this is your place. You can also find here 'create your own baby' munny dolls, phones shaped as drink cans, coffee holders shaped as camera lenses, crazy animal key rings with flashing eyes, angry birds toys and Princess Diana playing cards to name a few of the weird and wonderful stuff you can browse. There are also some cool tee-shirt design shops and photo print shops.

teppenyaki time

I had one of the best meals this week at a teppenyaki place called Kagen. It was all you can eat and drink on beers and saki and the food is cooked to perfection right in front of you, it is heaven. I would highly recommend any visitor to Shanghai to visit this place if you are going to have teppenyaki. I have also tried at local places Xinjiang chilli cold sesame noodles which were surprisingly tasty and filling and also cold sesame noodles, eggplant, bell peppers and potato, egg fried rice, vegetables and tofu and stir-fired garlic and broccoli at another local place which was also very nice. Tonight I am going to be going to Southern Barbarian in the French Concession which specialises in homestyle yunnan food I have heard good things about.

I'm also very much looking forward to karaoke this weekend. I have already done some unofficial karaoke on stage at our local bar but this will be my first proper Chinese karaoke experience so should be lots of fun!

xoxo