West Bund shines as the heart of Shanghai Art Week

The 2025 West Bund Art and Design fair is being held at the West Bund Art Center on Nov. 15 in Shanghai, China. [LEE JIAN]

 
SHANGHAI — November is arguably the best month to visit Shanghai: crisp air, clear blue skies, and the city’s beloved hairy crab in peak season. It’s also when Shanghai Art Week — one of China's largest, citywide art celebrations — brings an extra dose of international flair. With major art fairs, Shanghai Biennale and dozens of parties and exhibitions across the city, the port megacity gives art lovers plenty to explore.
 
At the center is the West Bund, a calm waterfront removed from the city’s typical tourist path. On a recent Thursday, it was buzzing with creative energy as collectors and gallerists from around the world gathered beneath the crisp autumn air.
 

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West Bund is a major culture district along the Huangpu River in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, home to galleries, museums and performance venues, including the West Bund Museum and the annual West Bund Art and Design fair. [LEE JIAN]

 
West Bund, along the Huangpu River in Shanghai’s Xuhui District, is a government-led redevelopment zone that was initially an industrial area. Over the past decade, it has become one of China’s most significant cultural corridors, housing numerous galleries, museums and performance venues. Its landmark institution, West Bund Museum, opened in 2019 as a high-profile collaboration with the Centre Pompidou in Paris.
 
Come fall, the area gains an extra vibrancy with West Bund Art and Design, one of the most representative annual art fairs in China. Its current 11th edition is being held from Nov. 13 to 18, hosting more than 200 galleries and institutions, including international heavyweights such as White Cube, Perrotin and Thaddaeus Ropac, as well as Korean galleries such as Arario and Gallery Grimson.
 

The 2025 West Bund Art and Design fair is being held at the West Bund Art Center, a former aircraft manufacturing plant, on Nov. 15. [LEE JIAN]

 
The fair unfolds across several venues, but the buzziest site is West Bund Art Center — a former aircraft manufacturing plant. With its concrete walls, exposed wooden beams in a two-story layout, it is anything but a white-cube show. Artworks are scattered, stacked and clustered against aged building, creating a slightly dystopian visual rhythm: humanoids, robots and deconstructed structures tangled together under shafts of natural light.
 

The Tank Museum in West Bund is a contemporary art museum inside a disused oil tank. [LEE JIAN]

 
Reusing industrial spaces as cultural complexes is a global trend, but Shanghai’s transformations operate on a different scale.
 
Just a short walk away sits the Tank Museum, exhibiting art inside a decommissioned oil tank that opened in 2019. One of the current highlights is French sculptor Jean-Marie Appriou’s solo show “Cosmic Clock,” which features monumental metal heads of zodiac animals beneath the circular dome of the repurposed tank.
 

French sculptor Jean-Marie Appriou’s solo exhibition “Cosmic Clock" is on display at the Tank Museum on Nov. 15. [LEE JIAN]

 
The Shanghai Biennale, running from Nov. 8 to March 31, is centered at the Power Station of Art, a former power plant transformed into a contemporary art museum. Established in 1996, it is mainland China’s first international contemporary art biennale. This year marks its 15th edition — and the first under a female artistic director, Canadian curator Kitty Scott. Titled “Does the Flower Hear the Bee,” the biennale brings together more than 250 works by 67 artists from China and abroad, spanning painting, video, installation and large-scale mural works.
 
“There is an emphasis on ethnic minority and Indigenous art this year,” a spokeswoman for the biennale said. “We wanted to explore how the world and its connections can be seen through art.”
 
Long Museum, also in West Bund, used to be a coal transportation wharf, and still features the original 1950s coal-hopper unloading bridge as its central architectural feature.
 

The “Artist Treat” contemporary art exhibition is taking place at a former elementary school in the Huangpu District on Nov. 14. [LEE JIAN]

A vast urban art exhibition, dubbed the “Artist Treat” is taking place a former elementary school in the Huangpu District on Nov. 14. [LEE JIAN

 
A vast urban art exhibition, dubbed the “Artist Treat,” is taking place in a former elementary school in the Huangpu District from Nov. 8 to 18. Each classroom is its own exhibit, displaying different contemporary mediums.
 
Larry’s List, a leading art-market research company, is staging a pop-up exhibition at Guang’er Warehouse, a 1930s-era building, from Nov. 12 to 25. The project gathers 11 curatorial teams alongside foundations, designers, private collectors, artists, and institutions to create a stylish presentation of painting, installation, video, fashion, furniture and art books — arranged as though visitors are stepping into a collector’s home.
 

Local Chinese artists perform during Cheruby's party in Rockbund on Nov. 12. [LEE JIAN]

 
During this period, expect busy nights as well. Shanghai is a party city, and art week is never short on after-hours events. 
 
One of the crowded gatherings was hosted by the local contemporary fashion and art organization Cheruby in Rockbund, a revitalized historic district at the northern tip of the Bund. Lined with restored European colonial buildings housing galleries, luxury boutiques, cafes and high-end dining, it has become one of the trendiest spots for the city’s culture crowd.
 
Yusang Shi, co-founder of Shanghai's Project Lai, isn't a typical partygoer, but her nights during Shanghai Art Week have been just as substantive as the day. “Good taste, chill, down to the earth," she said. "It was a great time, especially having candid and interesting conversations with remarkable women working in the art industry.” 
 

BY LEE JIAN [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]