Shanghai

The modern city of Shanghai rose up from truly 'muddy' origins, both in the soft subsoil its foundations were build upon and its early economy based on a trade in opium, or 'foreign mud'. Forced open to the British by the unequal Treaty of Nanking in 1842, Shanghai did what it does best- it beat the odds to become a 'bawdy and gaudy' metropolis that, 168 years later, commands a place in the contemporary imagination unlike any other city. Despite civil war, invasion, revolution and famine, Shanghai has continued to be a byword for style, culture, business and opportunity, leading the way for China's ongoing boom. Shanghai- A History in Photographs, 1842-Today unravels the origins of today's Shanghai, exploring the forces that shaped the city through rare archive photographs, images from private collections, and original commissions from the world's top contemporary photographers. This is the story of China-told through the prism of the country's most international city. With a forward by Paul French.

Liu Heung Shing was born in Hong Kong in 1951. He began his career as a photojournalist covering the death of Chairman Mao Zedong in 1976. He was the first Chinese person to win a Pulitzer Prize, for his coverage of the collapse of the USSR. Liu is the author of China After Mao (Penguin, 1982), USSR: Collapse of an Empire (Associated Press, 1992), and editor of China, Portrait of a Country (Taschen, 2008). He has been named as one of the 100 most influential figures in contemporary history by Photo magazine. Karen Smith is the foremost authority on contemporary Chinese art, and is an art historian, curator, and collector. She was the curator of many high profile exhibitions, including The Real Thing (Tate Liverpool, 2007) and Chinese Photography and Video (Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg). Smith is the author of Nine Lives: The Birth of Avant-Garde Art in New China (Scalo, 2006). She lives in Beijing, where she is involved in numerous philanthropic projects.

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