Art Galleries, The Fashion Walk, Shikumen and more Wine please !

Lately I have decided to take an art tour with the Shanghai Expat group and it was interesting....the first few galleries were "modern" art or weird in my opinion.  The last gallery was really cool.  But you be the judge.  Here are some of the gallery works.

Yes -- these are golden dentures under glass....

Wings---on the floor

An eye with the image of an old masters painting reflected in the cornea---

 This one above is done with stickers!!

 I agree with the artist :)  If you hate your work, just put a big X through it.

 This one is creepy on many levels....

For my NICU friends---yes it is "art" but it looks like monitors gone wild!

YES---this is in the art gallery---? really?

I should have never painted over my kids "art" in their rooms....

This one had a long winded story about balance and life :)  

??????

Made from leather, paper and I am not sure what else.

This is my favorite--an oil painting of the artists face with the image of currency superimposed...


A trendy shop in Xintiandi had a mini fashion show---it was fun---I stayed close to the food table in case of hunger...

We attended a flower arranging class at the Zen store and learned the Japanese and Chinese arranging style---it was very fun and we got to vote on the winner at the end.....

                                      My "chinese style" creation....

I took a tour of the French Concession with one of my Lanson friends today...we toured a Shikumen home that was built in 1920...and four generations of a family have lived there since.  Today it is a museum and madarin/culture school.  The man that gave the tour is a decendant of the original owners and spoke of his life in China in the 1950's and '60s.  Under Mao, he was sent to the farmland and worked as a laborer for 10 years and could only see his family once a year during spring festival.

"Shi" means stone, "Ku" means garage, and "Men" means door.  This is part of the door, there is one like it on the other side.  

The alley way in front of the Shikumen houses.

The front room or parlor...the outdoor courtyard had a huge fig tree growing off to the right, plus a bird cage, a cricket cage and a container for fish.



On to the "wet markets" in the concession.....the veggies looked great but the odor of the meat in the market was nauseating....

Any kind of egg you can imagine....

And tofu...........

A Traditional Chinese Medicine Shop

New weight loss product!!  Drink some of the orange stuff all crushed up into a powder, add H2O and drink three times a day and "poof" you are skinny :)  Yea right..

Geko---used to treat asthma and other respriatory ailments.

After all that---wine "tasting" and dinner out with friends!