Ballads of Shanghai is a solo exhibition by photographer Graham Fink, opening at the Riflemaker gallery in London on 1st February. Over the course of five years, the artist has documented various demolition sites in and around Shanghai - the largest city in the world. The matte and gloss treatment in the series gives each image a painterly quality - shaping the human aspects, stories and ‘ballads’ that pervade these demolition sites. The Riflemaker gallery is located at79 Beak Street, London.

Riflemaker Press Release

Graham Fink

Ballads of Shanghai
1 – 14 FEBRUARY, 2016

The rapidly changing landscape of urban China is the subject of artist Graham Fink’s solo photographic exhibition, opening at Riflemaker gallery in London on 1 February. Over the course of five years, the artist (whose work was recently on display at Shanghai Art Fair, 2014) has documented various demolition sites in and around Shanghai - the largest city by population in the world. The photographic series communicates the enormity of the transition that is taking place there as the country moves increasingly towards a large-scale urbanization and more workers relocate for employment in the manufacturing industries. Not only are new cities emerging but immense urban renewal efforts are underway.

These demolished areas sites are ‘exchange sites’, where the past is being obliterated and exchanged for the future, where a not-so-distant communism gives way to new ideas and structures - super skyscrapers, office buildings and new domestic ways of living. As a result, these sites are in constant flux - the entire areas are flattened to make way for new beginnings.

The matte and gloss treatment in the series gives each image a painterly quality - shaping the human aspects, stories and ‘ballads’ that pervade these ‘exchange sites’ - wallpaper clinging to a wall, a child’s drawing on a remnant of what was formerly a bedroom, a once favourite chair, now left for economy and industry to reclaim.

Visitor information:

Riflemaker, 79 Beak Street, London W1, 020 7439 0000, www.riflemaker.org
Riflemaker is co-directed by Virginia Damtsa & Tot Taylor
Opening hours: Monday - Friday 10am - 6pm
Saturday 11am - 6pm

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