Just a stone's throw from Shanghai's Bund, George Michell opened a new art gallery last year.

Art galleries are always tricky propositions, particularly in Shanghai where business is infinitely more important than art. Still, says Michell, opening Studio Rouge was more passion than business.

"There is increasing interest, especially here, on the Bund it is kind of a special space here," he said.

Interest in the area was rekindled after an art gallery opened at Three on the Bund, a high end -- and high priced -- center for fashion, food and art.

Studio Rouge is considerably smaller but its aims are high and not atypical of new galleries, which are popping up in Shanghai as interest in contemporary Chinese art grows and more collectors begin to seriously consider it as an investment.

"I think setting up a gallery is extremely difficult, but if what you are doing is good and exciting then it is like karma, everything gravitates towards you," Michell said.

The most classic example of a start-up that has grown into a Shanghai institution may be Shanghart, owned by Lorenz Helbling.

The gallery, which opened in 1994, has worked with a staple of artists and pushed contemporary art overseas. It has done it by sticking with artists Helbling knows and through business acumen.

"Now, marketing is more important. Before, it was supplying information some people think it is commercialization of art but it is good," said Helbling.

"Art is getting more and more interesting. More commerce opens up more possibilities for art."

If that is the case, then the possibilities in Shanghai should be limitless. After all, Shanghai only started to really develop in the early 90s and the art scene a little after that.

Chinese contemporary art as a whole is relatively new, less than two decades. Modern masters that came out of China earlier in the 20th century really learned their art in Paris.

Western collectors were -- and generally still are -- in the dark about artists and prices.

The general lack of information, and the subsequent low demand for Chinese art among the less enthusiastic collectors, is a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, Helbling said, some art can be found relatively cheap, but it is important to find artists who will produce new and original work long enough for prices to go up.

Even for known artists prices can range wildly, from US$100,000 Zhan Wang sculptures to US$1,000 ink or acrylic works by Wang Jingsong. As with all art from, prices vary depending on the artist, the medium and size of the works.

For prospective art investors, galleries with built up reputations can go a long way to ensure money is not wasted on here-today-gone-tomorrow artistes.

Galleries have also played a key role in elevating Shanghai's art scene to something from more than a mere whisper into a national force. A growing number of public institutions, like the Duolun Museum of Modern Art, have also helped advance Chinese art and popularize it overseas.

The result has been a wider appreciation of it in a city known more for its business acumen than its love of the aesthetic .

"Young people are taking an interest in contemporary art as appreciators," Michell said. "They have a very strong appreciation of contemporary art that is one of the reassuring things about the future."

(China Daily May 18, 2005)