Sept. 9 (Bloomberg) -- The organizers of SHContemporary, Shanghai's biggest contemporary art show, tore down an enclosure today that would have featured eight of Belgian artist Wim Delvoye's tattooed pigs, after banning the exhibit at the fair.

Workers, escorted by security guards, dismantled the sty at the Shanghai Exhibition Center at 11:30 a.m., said Xin Beijing Gallery's manager Yu Tiantian, the dealer of Delvoye's work. The pigs, tattooed with Walt Disney Co. characters and LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA's motif, were banned from the art fair which starts tomorrow and ends Sept. 13. Yu wouldn't say if the government had ordered the ban. Gu Zihua, spokesman for SHContemporary, declined to comment.

``It's unbelievable how aggressive they are becoming in stopping this show,'' Delvoye said today by phone from Shanghai. ``We have collectors who've traveled to China all the way from Europe to see the pigs. They're very disappointed.''

Shanghai, China's financial hub, is vying with Beijing to be the country's center for contemporary culture as it prepares to host the 2010 World Expo. The SHContemporary fair begins after ArtBeijing ends this week in the Chinese capital.

The Shanghai event, featuring 140 galleries from 25 countries, is one of five autumn art fairs in China aimed at enticing collectors to buy in a market hit by the world's worst-performing equity index this year. Price gains in works by Liu Xiaodong and other Chinese contemporary artists have slowed and auction sales have shrunk as a drop in China's equities erased $2.3 trillion in market value this year.

Delvoye bred his pigs on a farm outside Beijing, letting his tattoos grow with the animals. The animals' skins are sold for up to 75,000 euros ($104,800) a piece. A canvas, marked with Walt Disney characters, was sold to Chanel SA and made into two bags, displayed at the fashion group's Feb. 26 Mobile Art exhibition in Hong Kong, according to Delvoye's spokeswoman Xia Jie.

Xin Beijing Gallery plans to recover 18,000 yuan ($2,632) in costs from SHContemporary's organizers, said Yu.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eugene Tang in Beijing on eugenetang@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: September 9, 2008 03:47 EDT