After the opening of the Shanghai Biennial, we all got on buses and went to the river for a boat cruise to celebrate. Actually, I nearly didn't get on because I didn't have the paper invitation and the young girl checking passes wanted me to get off the bus. As I've learned in China, I simply refused and she quickly backed down.
All the artists from the biennial were there. I had dinner with Liu Ye, who specializes in Lolita-esque paintings of Jenny, who is like my Chinese daughter in Beijing. We were joined by France Pepper of China Institute in New York, her new beau David, and Yiu Ling Mei who runs 140 sq. meters, an excellent gallery in Shanghai. I should have been taking more pictures of people--curator Wu Hung from Chicago, Shengtian Zheng, editor of Yishu, Richard Vine from Art in America, photographer Klaus Mettig and artist Inci Ivener who both had terrific contributions in the show--but I was obviously more fascinated by the Shanghai waterfront which is spectacular at night. Anyway, this travelogue needed a bit more scenery, especially in Shanghai, where a biennial cannot be separated from the showcase of a city surrounding it.
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