Curated by Fan Dian, Wu Jiang, Li Xu, Yuko Hasegawa, Alanna Heiss, Klaus Biesenbach

Hard on the heels of São Paulo’s “Metropolitan Iconographies” comes Shanghai’s “Urban Creation,” another blockbuster focusing on cities and globalization. Curators Fan Dian, Wu Jiang, Li Xu, Yuko Hasegawa, and P.S. 1’s Alanna Heiss and Klaus Biesenbach offer a lineup of more than thirty international names, including Julian LaVerdiere, Navin Rawanchaikul, Haluk Akakçe, and the Cuban collective Los Carpinteros. The urbanist angle seems apt for China’s experimental free-market boomtown, but questions remain: How will this fourth installment of the biennial show build on well-trod thematic ground? How can it retain a sense of local identity? And will hit-and-run unofficial exhibits steal the show, as they did in 2000?

— Rachel Withers