Word: erh
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Recording his city's rich architectural heritage has been a demoralizing task for Shanghainese photographer Deke Erh. While Art Deco buildings in Miami, New Zealand's Napier and even the Eritrean town of Asmara are lovingly tended, Shanghai has demolished scores of equally historic structures in its headlong rush for modernity. "I've been taking photographs of old Shanghai for 20 years, and I've continually seen these things torn down," says Erh. "But I still have hope. Even today, Shanghai has more Art Deco buildings than any other city in the world. If I didn't have hope...
...publication of Erh's self-funded new book Shanghai Art Deco is testament to the 47-year-old photographer's determination in the face of the city's merciless wrecking ball. In 320 pages and over 1,000 photographs, Erh and other photographers capture many of the city's surviving historic residences, hotels, cinemas and municipal buildings-creating a sweeping survey of the architectural and cultural treasures that could be threatened by relentless development. "When these buildings went up in the 1920s and '30s, a great deal of money and thought went into creating a beautiful city," says Erh. "Since...
...Erh would like things to be as they once were. Emphasizing clean, uncluttered shapes and simplified lines to express the dynamism of the mechanical age, Art Deco first gained recognition in 1925 at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris. Within a few years, its influence had spread to Shanghai, at a time when the "Paris of the East" was largely under the control of Western powers. With close to 4 million inhabitants, 1930s Shanghai was the fifth-largest city in the world and the most cosmopolitan place in China. To reflect...
...almost 40 years Shanghai was cut off from the world," says Tess Johnston, a 75-year-old American who has lived in Shanghai for more than two decades and who wrote the text for Erh's book. "Now that the city has a chance to catch up, it is looking to the future and neglecting the past. If things don't change, everything that makes Shanghai unique will be lost forever...
...Just about everything is for sale in China, and that includes art. Check out the new "art street" on Taikang Road, where contemporary studios and more traditional galleries vie for customers. The highlights include Deke Erh's Studio, which is run by a local photographer who has made it his mission to record hundreds of historic buildings before they are torn down, and the nearby Hands in Clay Pottery Studio, where local university students show off their designs. At most of these galleries, foreigners tend to be the main patrons but locals are beginning to show interest in China...