PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai announces exhibitor line-up for its 8th edition this April

PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai announces today its gallery and exhibitor line-up for its forthcoming 8th edition. Organised by Creo and presented in partnership with Porsche, the fair returns to the Shanghai Exhibition Centre on April 20-23, 2023. Over 50 exhibitors, comprising high-end galleries, art spaces, institutions, publishers, and studios, are taking part in the different sectors including Main, Platform, Publishing and Culture Spaces.

PHOTOFAIRS Shanghai is Asia Pacific’s leading fair dedicated to photo-based and digital artworks. This year’s edition brings together a strong line-up of galleries from across China; it is a point of convergence, providing a platform for the most exciting emerging voices in Chinese contemporary photography whilst showcasing the historically significant and globally recognised artists that played a key role in shaping visual culture in the region.

Fan Ni, Director, #photofairs Shanghai said: ‘We are very happy to return to the Shanghai Exhibition Center this April and present exceptional new photo-based and digital art created both by established artists, as well as young talents from all over the world. Around a third of the galleries and publishers are new to the Fair this year and we are excited to introduce them, together with our long-standing exhibitors, to audiences here in China. Many institutions and organisations are joining us as well this year to showcase their new developments on photography and digital art, among them are local institutions and international cultural organisations. I would like to thank our partners who share with us a passion for photography and I invite you all to experience and enjoy the fair.’

Exhibiting Galleries｜Main and Platform
Galleries participating in the Main and Platform sectors present diverse artworks from established galleries to emerging newcomers. The artists being presented include contemporary pioneers of photography and celebrated video artists, as well as leading names in photography from within China.

Among the established galleries, Three Shadows + 3 Gallery (Beijing and Xiamen) presents works by Daidō Moriyama, #nobuyoshiaraki, #koobohnchang and Hisaji Hara. Daidō Moriyama’s work is recognised for its candid approach to the urban landscape and its inhabitants, while Hisaji Hara’s meticulous portraiture, inspired by Balthus’s painterly practice, places his subjects in a dreamlike narrative, somewhere on the trajectory between imagination and reality. see+ Gallery (Beijing, Shenzhen), presents a series of contemporary photographers, including Gabriela Morawetz, #tillleeser, #yanming, #luyanpeng and #wangjuyan. The gallery also focuses on two critical figures of the post-photographic era: Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor, whose works invoke complex symbolisms through photomontage and post-production techniques, creating precisely altered photographic realities. Bringing together the best of Eastern and Western #contemporaryart, Matthew Liu Fine Arts (Shanghai) exhibits three fine artists whose works are increasingly resonant with Chinese collectors and audiences: Candida Höfer, Vik Muniz, and Yang Yongliang.

GALLERIA CONTINUA (San Gimignano, Beijing, Les Moulins, Habana, Roma, São Paulo, Paris, Dubai) returns with a solo presentation of new works by Giovanni Ozzola. Ozzola, who specialises in capturing the variability of light, explores concepts of time, infinity and existence in his works. A Thousand Plateaus Art Space (Chengdu) showcases the works of Li Lang, Chen Qiulin, and Chen Xiaoyi, three key figures in Southwestern Chinese contemporary photography. Their perceptive and meticulous practices demonstrate a keen insight into social issues, as they consider China’s changing lifestyles and landscapes.

DUMONTEIL (Shanghai, Paris) presents three French contemporary artists, including Hugo Deverchère, whose most recent work, La Isla de Las Siete Ciudades, reconstructs the origins of a group of islands on the Iberian coast that were believed to exist in the 15th and 16th centuries but have since disappeared from maps.

BONIAN SPACE (Beijing), established in 2019, presents the works of important figures in 20th century Chinese photography, including Luo Bonian and Jin Shisheng, who were highly prolific in the 1930s, capturing the daily life of China’s urban centres and tracing the history of these rapidly growing cities. EAST GALLERY (Nanjing), which takes oriental aesthetics as a starting point, presents Dong Wensheng, Sun Xiaozhou, and other artists who explore the experience of traditional Chinese culture. EYECANDIES (Shanghai), a hub for emerging artists, launches three young female photography artists, Li Yushi, Yu Ruojie, and Winnie Tse. Li Yushi’s intimate portraits frame questions of gender and sexuality with a particular focus on the role of the gaze, whilst Yu Ruojie tests the limits of the camera lens, as she focuses on creating photographic abstraction with minimal post-production. 193 Gallery (Paris) showcases the vibrant and powerful works of Kenyan photographer Thandiwe Muriu and Moroccan photographer Hassan Hajjaj. Fisheye Gallery (Paris) brings several emerging photographers, such as Léa Habourdin, works with drawings and photographs exploring fields such as ethology, applied science research and botanics, and Delphine Diallo, whose approach to portraiture shows an empathy and responsibility in her role as photographer, as well as a willingness to empower the subject.

Innovation Sector | Culture Spaces & Publishing
Since its founding in 2014, the Fair has firmly embedded photography and visual art within Shanghai's cultural DNA and has been deeply involved in fostering the growing enthusiasm for contemporary photography in China. As the first edition to take place in the Spring season, this year’s Fair harnesses the gathering strength of local art museums and art institutions in Shanghai, and aims to explore the vibrancy and diversity of the cities and regions beyond. The brand new sector Culture Spaces, which evolved from the Not for Profit sector of the last edition, further highlights the important role of museums, institutions, and cultural organisations in the development of photographic art. Among them, the Miguel de Cervantes Library (Shanghai), the Pro Helvetia Shanghai, Swiss Arts Council (Shanghai), the Swatch Art Peace Hotel (Shanghai), and Fotografiska (Stockholm, New York, Tallinn), all present rich photography and video art projects at the Fair.

The Miguel de Cervantes Library, whose mission is to promote the culture of Spanish-speaking countries, presents a solo project of José Manuel Ballester, winner of the Spanish National Photography Prize. Browsing in Disguise, a project supported by Pro Helvetia Shanghai, presents the works of three emerging Swiss artists who rethink technological images and the new forms of cultural and intellectual production associated with them. The artist residency programme of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel has been providing learning and development opportunities for emerging artists from China and around the world since 2011, and their group exhibition DIALOGUES features several emerging photographic talents that have participated in the residency. Fotografiska, showcases the works of Lori Nix & Kathleen Gerber, an artistic duo known for making and photographing ultra-realistic miniatures.

Established in 2021, the Publishing sector celebrates the unique nature of photobooks and art publications. This year the sector includes more than ten high-quality publishers from at home and abroad. Northing, a non-profit cultural organisation, showcases a selection of Norwegian photobooks in collaboration with Fotobokfestival Oslo 2023, including a new book published by Kinakaal Forlag, created by Shanghai artist Ma Liang and Bergen artist Tonje Bøe Birkeland.

GOST Books (London), one of the UK's leading independent publishers of visual arts and photography, features the newly-revised edition of Mark Power's project The Shipping Forecast, which depicts the thirty-one sea areas of Western Europe, as categorised by the daily BBC Shipping Forecast; and Gli Isolani, a two-year project by award-winning female photographer Alys Tomlinson, documenting the traditional costumes worn on the islands of the Venetian Lagoon, Sicily and Sardinia. Publishing group ACC ART BOOKS (London, New York, Shanghai, Singapore) will present Chinese portrait photographer Pang Xiaowei's new book Farmer, representing a curated selection of neary 160 portraits of contemporary Chinese farmers. This powerful series highlights the strong connection between the photographer and the subjects.

The Eriskay Connection (Breda) presents Shooting the Tiger by Xu Xiaoxiao portraying the costumes, performances and dances at the traditional festival Shèhuŏ in the Northwest of China; and Some Way Out Of Here by Jos Jansen, who works with a 3D LiDar camera to capture the uncertainties of contemporary life. SEISODO (Kyoto) returns with Ryoji Akiyama‘s acclaimed photobook Dear Old Days and its 2 subsequent reprints; and Chugoku no Tabi (“Journey to China”), a major work by the celebrated Japanese photographer Ihei Kimura.

Jiazazhi (Ningbo, Shanghai) returns with several new publications by contemporary Chinese photographers and artists, including Chen Zhe’s Pick Your Poison highlighting in-depth dialogues between the artist and her peers between 2011 to 2022; and Taca Sui’s Steles - Huang Yi Project, which focuses on the stone steles that have played a crucial role in the documentation of the history of China.

Further expanding the Fair’s exploration of the convergence of photography and digital art, this #photofairs Shanghai has invited ALiCE, a virtual human, to serve as its official ambassador with the aim of co-creating a video surrounding "reality and imagination" and exploring the future of video art through a series of creative visuals.

Further information in the press release to download