The return of Photofairs Shanghai (20-23 April) after a hiatus year is poised to ride China’s “revenge spring” of a fully reopened economy to the outside world. It is the first major mainland fair after China lifted its stringent zero-Covid policy last December.
“We are lucky, timing wise,” says the Photofairs Shanghai director Fan Ni. “Exhibitors also feel it is really a good time.” She says that Chinese galleries say that sales after Lunar New Year, from February through to mid-March, have rebounded from the same pre-lockdown period in 2022, “so they are confident about April”.
The 30 mostly China-based participating galleries for this year include ShanghArt, Studio Gallery, Gaotai Gallery and A Thousand Plateaus Art Space. They are joined by several local non-profits including the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, Pro Helvetia Shanghai and Miguel de Cervantes Library. Fotografiska, which will launch its first Asia location on Shanghai’s Suzhou Creek waterfront later this year, will also have a booth. Overlapping photography shows citywide include Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art’s 20-year anniversary retrospective. A publishing section at Photofairs will feature 15 Chinese, Japanese and British firms offering photography books and magazines. “Traffic was low in 2021 due to the Covid testing requirement [for admission], but even then, many publishers sold out,” says Fan.
This year the fair has also offered a reduced booth rate of $318 per sq m, cut from $445, for galleries under eight years old or bringing only artists under the age of 35. The size of the fair still marks a reduction from pre-pandemic participation of around 50 galleries, Fan says, as the December lifting of Covid restrictions came too late for many galleries to plan around. The 40% overseas participation has dipped to just a few galleries this year, and overseas participants and collectors alike are, says Fan, “mostly coming from Hong Kong and Taiwan”. She says that “the rest of the world still needs time” to get used to visiting China again. Exhibitors from further afield include 193 Gallery and Fisheye Gallery from Paris and Yiwei Gallery from Los Angeles. “193 was excited to come to Shanghai even back in November, when it required a quarantine,” Fan says.
V&E Art, with locations in Paris and Taipei, initially “hesitated because they were at [Shanghai fair] ART021 last year—not so pleasant an experience”, Fan says. Last November ART021 was shuttered after one day, and some exhibitors were quarantined. The concurrent West Bund Art & Design fair was closed the following day after one close Covid contact. Two weeks later, as the zero-Covid policy lifted following nationwide protests, “they still ultimately signed up for Photofairs Shanghai because 2021 saw good sales for them”, Fan says. “I don’t see a risk of fairs shutting down in China again. It is safe to come here.”
A permanent move to spring
This year marks the fair’s first time in a spring slot since its debut in September 2014, a move that Fan says will be permanent. “Asia doesn’t have many galleries that are just photography,” she says, so most participants are multi-format contemporary art galleries. “Generally autumn has so many other fairs and museum shows, so they prefer a less busy time.”
This autumn, the founders of Photofairs will shift their focus to the US, with the September debut of Photofairs New York. Photofairs San Francisco ran in 2017 and 2018 but closed after reportedly costing its owners $1m. “Our goal had always been to return to the United States, the largest art and photography market in the world, with the East Coast being its centre,” says the Photofairs founder and chief executive Scott Gray. Despite this, previously there “was no art fair in New York dedicated to contemporary fine art photography, digital and video art”, he says. Fan envisions the fairs eventually creating a global conversation, starting with Chinese galleries already applying for New York. Gray says the company “strongly believes in Shanghai’s importance as a key international market for photo-based and digital art in the Asia Pacific”.