Behind the storied Suzhou Creek, which winds its way through Shanghai before joining the Huangpu River, a complex of art galleries and studios have not only managed to stay in existence, they are thriving.

Despite the constant threat of demolition, which motivated locals to band together early last year to save as much of the area's architecture as possible, the galleries at 50 Moganshan Road are driving forward the city's art scene.

There may be galleries with more polish and shine lining the city's famous Bund or around the financial district, but the galleries and studios on Moganshan Road have a synergy that all art communities need.

Much like Shanghai's art scene, Moganshan Road is a little hidden and a little out of the way, but it provides a portal to a world of Chinese contemporary art that is fighting for the attention -- and some of the money -- of the world.

It is in his gallery inside this maze of galleries that Lorenz Helbling explains why contemporary Chinese artists are starting to sell, and why they are starting to sell in Shanghai.

"People who have seen art, buy art," said Helbling, owner of Shanghart, this east coast city's first independent art gallery.

Helbling is a smallish Swiss, who looks the part of an artist. He has long hair, dresses in faded black and has a chin covered by a well-developed stubble. He also chain-smokes Zhongnanhai-brand cigarettes.

He founded Shanghart in 1994. Back then -- as many of them still do -- artists and gallery owners naturally gravitated towards Beijing.

New age in Shanghai

Shrewdly focused on the world of commerce, Shanghai has not traditionally been known as a center for the arts. That role, historically, has in general been filled by the country's cultural, political and intellectual heartland of Beijing. In fact, in many ways Moganshan is a smaller but more intense version of the capital's now internationally renowned art district of Dashanzi, or Factory 798.

Still, with its emphasis on multiculturalism and its desire to be world-class on every front, Shanghai is rapidly developing as a portal for the world into China's contemporary art scene.

More and more people, both foreign and local, are looking to Shanghai not so much as an arts center, but rather as an arts gateway, even if things are just getting started.

"When I came here, nobody associated Shanghai with art," says Helbling. "Now you can see the most important artists in Shanghai.

"Everything is still nascent. Now there are some good spaces, good artists. At the moment you can see some good art, but you have to make some effort," he adds.

The effort is both on the part of the buyers, who may have to hunt to find pieces they like, and the galleries, which often cannot sell works by Chinese contemporary artists.

According to Li Lei, organizer of the Shanghai Art Salon, about three quarters of the city's art galleries make only tiny profits or simply loose money.

At the same time, there are legal quagmires, which due to lack of laws, damage the art world. As a result, galleries and artists are not well-protected. Contracts are often broken, lending a level of uncertainty to the industry.

But, playing on its world-class aspirations, Shanghai is using its accessibility to the outside world to forge those goals.

Later this year, a group of Australian collectors and buyers will travel to Shanghai as part of a tour organized by the Melbourne Art Fair Foundation, the largest in Asia.

The first stop will be Shanghai.

"Shanghai was our first destination for our member tour because of its dynamic history, increasing contemporary art scene and relative closeness to Australia," said Ann Shoebridge, of the Melbourne Art Fair Foundation, which will bring a group of about 20 in November to visit the city's galleries.

"They are going to be looking and learning and buying," she said.

Step by little step, Shanghai is delving into the art world. But it is doing so with its unique style and a penchant for commerce that artists may not always like, but one that is impossible to overlook. After all, even artists have to eat.

Increasing attention

The city's role as a portal into Chinese contemporary art has caught the attention of the world. Not only do the large auction houses have offices in Shanghai, but the city is also attracting more overseas buyers. At the same time its accessibility makes it a natural first link into a contemporary art market that is starting to attract international attention.

"The number of Beijing buyers is larger than that of those from Shanghai, but Shanghai buyers are really big spenders and they are willing to pay more than one million yuan (US$120,000) for one lot," said Ben Kong, from Christie's.

The city's accessibility may be the upper hand it needs to creep up on Beijing as the driver for contemporary Chinese art. At the same time, the lower costs of works coming out of China both contemporary and modern may help it cement a reputation with buyers from around the world.

"I think contemporary art is moving from Beijing to Shanghai," said Joyce Zhang, the Shanghai-based representative of international auction house Christie's. "The paintings here are cheaper than in Europe or the United States."

Christie's first set up shop in the city in 1994 "when there was nothing here in Shanghai.

"Now there are more than 10 auction houses."

There are also galleries of all shapes and sizes from the top end like the Shanghai Gallery of Art on the city's famous Three on the Bund complex to the small, tiny and intensely personal like 1918 Art Space near the city's financial center.

These galleries and walls, suddenly full of contemporary art, are looking to the growing number of Chinese who have had access to art and understand its value and to the foreigners who, after China started opening its doors in late 1978, began to learn and understand more about the country.

These are the buyers. The Chinese are often young, said Zhang. They are in their 30s and 40s and generally educated abroad. They earn a good chunk of money and understand that art is more than something pretty to hang on a wall; it is an investment.

They can also relate more to contemporary art than to the more inaccessible traditional Chinese art because "contemporary art is easier to understand."

Foreigners, however, are still the biggest buyers of the more expensive pieces.

"Most works are not sold to local people. They can (be sold) to people from overseas who make a point of knowing art," said Helbling.

Foreigners are also starting up art galleries and pushing up the number of start-ups and giving the market a boost.

"I think there are a lot of galleries and they all seem to be burgeoning," said George Michell, who opened Studio Rouge last year just off the Bund.

The gallery is two floors of trendy contemporary art and the exhibition he had on in May "reflects the division of art in Shanghai," Michell said.

The range was wide. Photographs by well known Shanghai-based foreigners focusing on the contrast evident in Shanghai's development were hung side-by-side with abstract paintings by Chinese artists and silk screens that highlighted the cultural changes in China over the last half century.

There is a lot of range available, that is not in question, Michell said, but it is not yet all grown up.

"Shanghai is becoming such an international city that in five to 10 years it will be on a par with other international cities in the world in terms of its internationalism and cosmopolitanism," he said.

"In terms of art, I think it is in the process of being developed.

"Everything in Shanghai is growing and developing, therefore everything is interesting," Michell said.

Ultimately Shanghai's role may be a simple one: "Shanghai is a platform a gateway to the world."

As it grows into this new role, it is no longer shrugging off the potential of art to help elevate it beyond the mere financial.

Sitting in his Moganshan Road gallery, a big space overflowing with the contemporary works of artists he has helped develop over a decade, Helbling says attitudes are changing.

More and more people are making the link between art and their wallets. That, at least, has changed in the last 10 years.

"People said you are crazy, why are you even looking at art. Now they think, 'oh, an art gallery, that's good'."

(China Daily May 18, 2005)