The Beijing Olympics have drawn to a close, but the Asian art world is getting ready for its own pageant of sorts, as a spate of art fairs and biennials kicks off in Shanghai. The second ShContemporary joins the more established Shanghai Art Fair and 2008 Shanghai Biennale to showcase a broad selection of big names and fresh faces.

ShContemporary 08 features 150 galleries from 20 countries, split evenly between artists from inside and outside Asia. Vienna's Hilger Contemporary displays Spencer Tunick's trademark photos of mass nude happenings in cities around the world, while Zhang Huan explores the body and its place in Chinese culture with his recycled temple-ash works at Pace Beijing, a new space for New York's Pace Wildenstein. Bodhi Art exhibits unsettling security-based photographs by rising Indian star Shilpa Gupta, and Zhou Xiaohu, represented by the Walsh Gallery of Chicago, contributes Concentration Training Camp, a sly video and photographic commentary on corporate conformity set in the artist's native Shanghai.

Chinese urbanism comes into clear focus in works such as Anothermountainman's Lanwei photo series of abandoned construction projects at 10 Chancery Lane Gallery and the photo-assemblages of Shanghai dwellings by Spain's Isidro Blasco at Contrasts Gallery. Beijing's Long March Space brings Zhan Wang's contemplative stainless-steel rock gardens, while Alexander Ochs Galleries highlights the works of Wang Mai, whose cartoonish, color-drenched canvases offer a snide twist on recent clichés in Chinese painting. James Cohan Gallery focuses on the darkly playful postcolonial works of British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare, extending coverage of the artist with a concurrent solo show at its new Shanghai outpost.

For the Best of Discovery exhibition, 11 international curators selected a range of markedly experimental works. Pieces by better-known figures such as Beijing's Wang Luyan — a muscular satirist of consumption and politics — share space with sprawling, crafty installations from emerging Australian duo Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro and the psych-tinged sculptures and paintings of New Zealander Rohan Wealleans. By way of Israel and Amsterdam, Yael Bartana employs cultural symbols to unpack political concerns, and from Japan, upstart provocateur Tadasu Takamine — most notorious for his controversial Kimura-san video, which shows the artist helping a disabled friend masturbate — is grouped with his more sedate countryman Sakae Ozawa.

Finally, the Outdoor Projects present 20 large-scale pieces beyond the booths, including iconic text-based works by Lawrence Weiner, a tension-charged accumulation of windows and doors by Liu Wei, live tattooed pigs from Wim Delvoye's Art Farm, and Same like Me, a zoo-like, glassed-in enclosure by Wang Wei that plays on the politics of observation.

As if ShContemporary weren't enough for Shanghai art-goers, the 100-plus galleries at the Shanghai Art Fair, now in its 12th year, offer more commercial and traditional works, but expect something more adventurous at its ShanghART and 1918 ArtSpace booths. And the seventh installment of the Shanghai Biennale builds on the theme of "Trans Local Motion" with native heavyweights the Big Dipper Group — comprised of Liu Yue, Wu Lizhong, and Xu Xubing — and international iconoclasts like America's Mike Kelley, Korea's Sanggil Kim, and Israel's Guy Ben-Ner.

Of course, with almost a dozen other biennials, triennials, and assorted art proceedings opening in Gwangju, Busan, Singapore, Guangzhou, and Taipei this month, Shanghai is only the first stop on this season's Asian art circuit.

-Samantha Culp