"Shanghai" at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco

"Vestiges of a Process: Shanghai Garden", 2010

by Zhang Jian-Jun

"Shadow in the Water", 2002-2008
by Liu Jianhua

by Ekaterina Levina

The exhibit gives a feeling of a cosmopolitan city with a unique blend of different cultures. Shanghai is an Asian melting pot for arts and styles mixed with political influences of different regimes. Shanghai style is a proof that art accepts everything and everybody.

I liked the variety of representations of Chinese women - from classical beauties to sexualized advertisements, from domestic scenes to communist propaganda posters.

I left the exhibit with some kind of understanding why Shanghai is a sister city of San Francisco. I can’t really pinpoint it, but if it’s possible to judge a city by its arts, then Shanghai is the city where artists could live and work. It’s the same in San Francisco.

Shanghai appreciates art.