Asia's largest art trade fair concluded on Monday afternoon with reported on-site business volume valued at 52 million yuan (US$6.4 million), twice last year's.

The four-day 2005 Shanghai Art Fair attracted more than 55,000 visitors from home and abroad, 7,000 more previously.

According to industry insiders quoted by Xinhua News Agency today, the records set have shown that the city's art market has matured and that interest in investment in and collection of art there has come into being.

This year's fair had three exhibition halls: a Gallery Hall with modern and contemporary fine art for professional collectors; an Artists' Studio Hall featuring original artwork targeting Shanghai's emerging white-collar market; and a Seeking Treasure Hall selling decorative art and ornaments for more casual customers.

Sculpture was a new focus for this year's fair, and the 3.6-meter-tall "New Goddess" by French sculptor Armand Pierre Fernandez (1939-2005), widely known as Arman, who died in New York last month, featured alongside two other works created specially for Shanghai.

The annual event began in 1997.

(China.org.cn by Li Shen November 22, 2005)