In colonial times, Shanghai was known as the Paris of the Orient for its grand boulevards, gracious Western-style architecture and oh-so-worldly denizens. Although much of that city has been bulldozed, replaced by a metropolis of phantasmagoric skyscrapers, that spirit of sophistication and culture lives on, and the two-year-old ShContemporary art fair is one of its most vibrant expressions.

Go:

ShContemporary
WHAT: Launched by the former Art Basel director Lorenzo Rudolf in 2007, ShContemporary was the first major art fair to hit China. This year, Colin Chinnery, the former chief curator of Beijing’s Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, takes the reins, promising to steer the event in lively and provocative new directions.
WHEN: September 10 to 13
WHERE: Shanghai Exhibition Center
HIGHLIGHTS: "It’s not a secret that it’s going to be a tough year for us," says the Anglo-Chinese Chinnery. After enduring insider squabbles and high-profile departures, the fair now faces the challenge of a deflated art market and strong competition from Art HK, a sprightly Hong Kong fair that launched in 2008, and this past May booked such galleries as White Cube and Gagosian. But Arthur Solway, the director of the New York gallery James Cohan’s Shanghai outpost, has faith in ShContemporary. "Everybody always comes through Shanghai," he points out. "They want to see the city."

At this year’s fair, Solway will be showing tapestries by Fred Tomaselli, Gary Hume and Beatriz Milhazes. Under Chinnery, ShContemporary will be a much more curated event. He has handed direction of the Discoveries section, a large hall of commissioned artworks, over to a team composed of the Russian-American artist and e-flux founder Anton Vidokle, the Chinese artist Wang Jianwei, and Mami Kataoka, the senior curator at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum. Chinnery has also invited the critics Hans Ulrich Obrist and Hal Foster and the artist Martha Rosler to lecture.

As ShContemporary officially kicks off the fall art season in Shanghai, here is what visitors will find around town: The new Minsheng Art Museum, backed by the bank of the same name, will open this September with the acclaimed Chinese artist Zhou Tiehai at the helm. The James Cohan Gallery is mounting a group show of young American artists, including Trenton Doyle Hancock, Erick Swenson and Alison Elizabeth Taylor. The Bund 18 Creative Center, renamed 18Gallery, will present a video-art exhibition titled "Faces," featuring Ultralab, P. Nicolas Ledoux and Erwin Olaf. This year for the first time, the new-media arts initiative eArts will hold an exhibition at the Oriental Pearl Tower during the fair, as well as mounting a show from September 13 to October 11 at MOCA Shanghai, directed by Christophe de Jaeger. Pearl Lam’s Contrasts Gallery will feature contemporary ink-brush paintings, with works by André Kneib, Wang Tiande and Hans Hartung.

Stay:

The Peninsula
Without a doubt this hotel will be the king of its class when it greets its first visitors later this month. Located next to the former British Consulate estate, it will also be the first significant building on the Bund in almost 80 years.
Bund 32
32 Zhongshan Dong Yi Lu
86-21/2327-2888
Rates: $470-$12,500
peninsula.com/shanghai

Jia Shanghai
The city’s chicest boutique hotel is also one of its most comfortable, thanks to the company’s "home" concept ("jia" is Mandarin for "home"). Just a 10-minute walk from the Shanghai Exhibition Center, this sequel to the chain’s Philippe Starck-designed outpost in Hong Kong has outfitted its 55 rooms with ultramodern interiors that will satisfy the most ravenous design aficionado.
931 West Nanjing Lu
86-21/6217-9000,
Rates: $220-$58
jiashanghai.com

URBN Hotel
The self-described "carbon-neutral" URBN was built from recycled materials, such as slate and stone from demolished structures. The result is a sleek and eco-friendly hotel with a beautiful courtyard restaurant. "I’ve been telling people to stay at the URBN, which is at the heart of a cool neighborhood," says Solway, noting its location — shared by the fair — in the Jing An district.
183 Jiaozhou Lu
86-21/5153-4600
Rates: $192-$384
urbnhotels.com