Frank van der Salm, Site, 2008. [Photo courtesy of the artist]

From Shenzhen to São Paulo and from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, Dutch photographer Frank van der Salm, 61, has travelled the world over the last 30 years to document urban landscapes, resulting in a stunning oeuvre that both enthralls and confuses the audience.

In his aesthetically irresistible photographs, where human presence is rare, urban architecture around the world is shiny and futuristic but appears increasingly homogeneous. Some of the photos, due to their shallow depth of field, such as Site (2008), which portrays the sprawling high-rises in Dubai, strike viewers as architectural models presented by ambitious real estate developers.

Van der Salm's mid-career retrospective, Nowhere — Imagining the Global City, curated by Bas Vroege, brings together approximately 30 works from the artist's decades-long practice and is on display at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing.

In his speech at the exhibition's opening on July 11, Dutch Ambassador to China André Haspels said: "The title Nowhere is clever. It plays with the words 'now' and 'here,' but also 'nowhere'. But behind the word game lies something serious. This exhibition asks us to reflect on how we live, how we build, and how we connect in a world of global cities."

Visitors view MultiPlicity (2021), a giant video installation powered by artificial intelligence at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing on July 11. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

A highlight of the show is MultiPlicity (2021), a giant video installation powered by artificial intelligence. Featuring most of van der Salm's photographs, the dynamic work explores and substantiates the links between the images, trying to reveal the motifs behind the artist's oeuvre.

"Globalization has made the world smaller... digital media and mass media have transformed our lives and the ways we experience cities," Van der Salm said in his speech at the opening.

According to the artist, more than 60,000 images are produced worldwide every second, rendering cities as much media constructs as physical spaces. He argued that what shapes our urban environment today isn't just bricks and stone, but fiction — billboards on every street corner, LCD screens in hotel lobbies, skyscrapers draped in advertising, and scale models in amusement parks and toy stores.

Artist Frank van der Salm (left) and curator Bas Vroege give journalists a guided tour at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing on July 11, 2025. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Van der Salm said that through his work, he questions the authenticity of our constructed habitat, looking beyond buildings, streets and cars to reflect on the human condition within a metropolis designed by real estate developers, the entertainment industry and tech behemoths.

The artist and the curator participated in a panel discussion at the center on July 12, engaging with Ma Yansong, a renowned Chinese architect; Martijn de Geus, an associate professor of architecture at Tsinghua University; and Lin Tong, a professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts. Their discussion centered on the relationship between architecture, photography, technology and artistic creation.

Nowhere—Imagining the Global City is on view at the center until Aug 31 and will travel to Xiamen, East China's Fujian's province later this year, according to the Three Shadows.

Frank van der Salm, Entr'acte, 2016. [Photo courtesy of the artist]

Dutch artist Frank van der Salm’s solo Nowhere — Imagining the Global City is on show at the Three Shadows Photography Art Centre in Beijing. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Frank van der Salm, Control, 2008. [Photo courtesy of the artist]

Frank van der Salm, Link, 2004. [Photo courtesy of the artist]

Frank van der Salm, Sky, 2020. [Photo courtesy of the artist]