SHANGHAI SURPRISE
by Summer Block



In front of the Shanghai Art Museum on busy Nanjing Lu, hot pink banners advertise the Sixth Shanghai Biennale, Sept. 5- Nov. 5, 2006, which has the theme of "Hyper Design." Every day, mobs of Chinese and foreign tourists, students, businessmen and families stream into the five-story brick building to view some 128 pieces by 94 artists from 23 countries, in a show overseen by Shanghai Art Museum deputy director Zhang Qing and a team of six curators hailing from China, Italy, the United States, Korea and the United Kingdom. With the surging global demand for Chinese contemporary art, the Shanghai Biennale is more important than ever to the very idea of contemporary art in this city.

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