The Blacksmiths' Alchemy at SUPEC

Shanghaiist headed out to the city government on Wednesday morning to check out what was happening with the housing protester folks, who go there every Wednesday to meet with officials in hopes of solving their cases. It's been several months since we last reported on these folks, and nothing much seems to have changed. There are still of plenty of pissed off people. Wary of making too much of an impression on the guards over there, we talked briefly with some people and then headed next door, to the Shanghai Urban Planning and Exhibition Center, where they opened the The Blacksmiths' Alchemy exhibition. In case you missed it, here's a blurb:

The exhibition organized by the IVAM, with works by Julio González, Martín Chirino, Andreu Alfaro and Miquel Navarro which belong to its collection, reveals the importance of the invention of iron sculpture in Julio González’s sculptural work, and the influence that it has had on subsequent generations of Spanish sculptors who have made repeated use of iron, such as Martín Chirino, Andreu Alfaro and Miquel Navarro.

We don't really get art, but this exhibition left us a bit dumbfounded? Is this it? It was one floor only and sparse. Maybe some of it was just too incomprehensible to us -- we thought sculpture, even allowing for abstract and modernist stuff, was supposed to be a sight to behold, something moving, the way that all good art is. The next thought in our brains, was, "Shit, 40 RMB could have gotten me two beers at a happy hour!"

They told us there was more upstairs, but they were lying -- kind of -- because upstairs on the third floor is just the urban planning stuff, where you can see all kinds of futuristic models and flashing neon exhibits where a cool female voice briefs you on the history of Shanghai's urban development in the last few decades. If you've ever see any of these, you know what we mean -- they are not replicas so much as they are a vision of a shiny, glass-and-steel future, a future that, of course, does not yet exist. In the meantime, real buildings are being knocked down and replaced, and if you hang around these sites you can see a lot of people living in fairly parlous conditions. Oh yeah, and then there's also the stench of "ma la" sewage (which smells worse than green ooze sewage), especially in the summer, welcoming you back to the real world.

The Blacksmiths' Alchemy, July 6 through August 28, 9 am-5 pm, 100 People's Ave, Shanghai Urban Planning and Exhibition Center, Admission: 40 yuan. Tel: 6318-4477

Photo by Peijin Chen