Andrew Grassie Westbund 1, Shanghai Art Fair, China, 2016

The image depicts an interior view of the West Bund Art Center in Shanghai, site of the annual West Bund Art & Design Fair. Initially the artist saw anonymous archival images taken of nearby Art 021’s exhibition space. Andrew Grassie instructed a photographer to make additional photographs of the West Bund location, approximating the documentary aesthetic of the earlier anonymous images. From these approximately 50 commissioned pictures the artist chose four and, anticipating the deliberate design of art fair presentations and the crowds of attending visitors, has painted the empty spaces in advance of their use. Although the paintings are based on these images, they have substantially different quality from the photographic sources.