Isidro Blasco in Shanghai

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"This artist spent a month planting flowers in the streets of Shanghai, and he decorated his tricycle with a photo display so that passersby could see what he was up to. This sort of activism is dangerous business in this country; but I guess because he was making the city nicer, he did not get into too much trouble. The gallery had documents of the performance, a stack of flowerpots arranged in a city-like structure, and large aerial photos to show where the action took place. The intellectuals in this city are always going to think that the past has to be preserved — that it is a shame that the old Shanghai is disappearing in favor of an unattractive, often dehumanizing, city. Are they right? Ask any resident here, and they will tell you that they would much rather live in the new skyscrapers and have clean, wide streets than hang on to the romantic, but smelly and decrepit, old Shanghai. I don’t blame them."