The gallery areas are rather scattered, many of them away from the center and in former industrial buildings that have been renovated and re-purposed.
- M50 art district is Shanghai's main center for contemporary Chinese art, with dozens of studios and galleries. It is in a former factory in Putuo District.
- 1933 Shanghai is in a former abattoir; it has a theatre, shops, cafés and studios. See Hongkou for details.
- The Power Station of Art is on the Huangpu River, in an old power plant converted first to a pavilion for Expo 2010, and then the first state-run contemporary art museum in China. It is in Huangpu.
- The Shanghai Propaganda Poster and Art Centre is on the west side of the French Concession. A fine collection of Mao-era posters and other memorabilia, a bit hard to find but worth the effort.
- The Shanghai Gallery of Art is a commercial gallery in a shopping center called 3 on the Bund.
- The Tianzifang area in the French Concession has many galleries and studios.
- The West Bund in the French Concession is one of the city's newest art districts. In 2019, French art museum Centre Pompidou established its first Chinese outpost here at the West Bund Museum.
