Beijing #798

By Jorge Larrañaga

The economic growth of the giant China has been accompanied by an explosion of ‘creativity’ flooding the international contemporary art markets. While its creative value may be questionable, there can be no doubt that this is a tidal wave of art prepared to defend itself in the face of western culture and, as with other areas of Chinese pride, with political and financial backing. For many, the headquarters of this movement would be Dashanzi, an area of art galleries –mainly foreign– commonly known as the 798 Art District. In this area, with full governmental approval, art is exchanged for hard currency, consolidating its position as the platform for the promotion of Chinese art and at the same time creating an important tourist attraction. Here, under a façade of freedom of expression, artistic freedom is subordinated to business with the blessings of the Chinese government. It can be no coincidence that the epicenter of Chinese art is found in the political centre of the country –in the more lax coastal towns it would hardly be possible to exercise such a strict governmental control. And while the 798 Art District was dependent on hand-outs for a survival which hung by a thread until 2005, nowadays it is a thriving business centre, seen by many local artists as no more than an exhibition space where artists have sold-out and dance to the tune of foreign drums. At the same time it must be appreciated that without foreign help Chinese modern art would never have risen to the respected position it holds today.It was foreign galleries who opened the doors of the art business to Chinese artists (many of whom, seeing the economic perspectives, have now become gallery owners themselves).

Photographic Report of Bejing #798 District Made by Jorge Larrañaga.
Courtesy of the author.

It was the foreign galleries who created an intercultural dialogue between China and the west. And, above all, it was the foreign galleries who provided a space for contemporary art which, since the first repression in the 1980’s, did not enjoy governmental approval. Although there do now exist museums such as the China National Art Gallery or the Millennium Monument Art Museum, which occasionally offer exhibitions of modern art, it is the foreign galleries which are still the main trustees of new Chinese tendencies. Here is a heterogeneous mixture of spaces from all over the world –Spain being one of the few European countries not represented in Peking. Two galleries were key members in this transformation which led to today’s 798 Art District: The pioneer Red Gate Gallery, founded near to Beijing station in 1991 by the Australian Brian Wallace, and the American The Courtyard Gallery, opened in 1996 in a section of the Forbidden City. Both galleries are now prestigious spaces for the promotion of Chinese artists which are not only essential to the Peking art scene but enjoy international recognition as exporters of Chinese talent.

The presence of foreigners in the 798 Art Zone is nothing new. It was East German engineers and architects who challenged Soviet taste at the end of the 1950’s and helped to create this small city factory in a style reminiscent of Bauhaus. Although a perfect model of Chinese manufacturing, with the reforms of Deng Xiaoping the factories in the area became obsolete and by the beginning of the 1990’s were practically abandoned. The great free spaces in this and other peripheral zones led to the Central Academy of Fine Art (CAFA) opening an exhibition space in nearby factory 706 in 1995. This was the first movement towards decentralization, where art abandoned the centre of Peking, which was increasingly controlled by speculation, and moved to the lower-cost outskirts of the city. When Robert Bernell decided to move his art bookshop to the 798 Art District in 2001 the only ‘artistic’ neighbours he had were the Dean of Sculpture at CAFA, Sui Jianguo, who had set up his studio nearby, and the writer and musician Liu Suola. The American Bernell was known as the editor of chinese-art.com, the first e-zine in English dealing with contemporary Chinese art, as well as being the owner of the bookshop and publishers Timezone 8. His decision to transfer his business to the new space was based on one consideration: cheap space. A short time afterwards Huang Rui arrived in the area and with him began the great metamorphosis which would transform Dashanzi into what it is today.

Photographic Report of Bejing #798 District Made by Jorge Larrañaga.
Courtesy of the author.

Huang Rui, an artist who had suffered the effects of the cultural revolution, belonged to a group of avant-garde artists known as xingxing (stars), censured at the end of the 1970’s. In the mid 1980’s he followed the trail of many Chinese artists and took refuge in Japan where he was to marry and some years later be granted citizenship. In Japan he participated in a number of exhibitions and began his friendship with Tabata Yukihito of the Tokyo Gallery, curator of the exhibition ‘Chinese Contemporary Art Now’ among others.

Seeing the new atmosphere of openness in a country of growing possibilities, Huang Rui decided to return to Peking in the year 2000 and rented a former factory space of two hundred square meters in Dashanzi. Soon afterwards he approached Tabata with the proposal for an experimental, non-commercial project which would make use of the huge industrial warehouses in the area. Tabata traveled to the district but showed a degree of skepticism for the viability of the project, mainly due to the poor state in which he found many of the factories and the enormous amounts of money necessary to complete renovation work. Huang Rui promised that he himself would assume the responsibility for the rebuilding and that he would undertake to do this within a strict budget. And it was Huang Rui, with his own hands and using recycled materials, who completed his studio-loft and the Beijing Tokyo Art Projects gallery –the first exhibition space in the 798 Art Zone. More than one thousand people attended the opening of the space which from the start recieved international interest thanks to the prestigious magazine ‘Wallpaper’. One of the keys to the success of this venture was, without doubt, the moderate and careful character of Tabata. While Huang Rui wished for an artistic project that would fight the system and push the new Chinese liberties to the limits, Tabata decided not to go against the grain. Firstly he asked that the Maoist slogans on the cement walls of the factory should be preserved during renovation work. Secondly he named Feng Boyi, a renowned art critic and curator who enjoyed political favour, as the curator of the gallery, rejecting Huang Rui’s proposal of Li Xianting, an anti-government art critic who was famous for his numerous censured exposés. The decision was a wise one: there have never been problems with censorship and the relationship with local authorities continues to be good in spite of rumours in recent years of its decline. In no time at all –in yet another example of the enormous speed with which things have changed in China over the last decade– galleries, cafés, shops and other businesses related to the arts have been established in the 798 Art District. Today there are some forty artists’ studios, more than forty galleries of all sizes and nationalities, and almost thirty workshops dealing in design, fashion or publicity. The neighborhood is completed by a variety of restaurants, cafés, and designer clubs, all of which have converted this grey place of sooty walls and open plumbing into the artistic and cultural centre of China.

Nobody knows what will happen when the Olympic Games in Peking and the EXPO of Shanghai are over, when the world starts to lose interest in China. The organizers, however, remain optimistic and believe that the 798 Art District will continue to function. This belief is lent weight by the fact that the Ullens Foundation have renovated a space of five thousand square meters (the largest in the area) which, for the size and prestige of the collections, can be classed as a museum. The Guggenheim Foundation had also shown an interest in the space and, rumour has it, continue to look for a location in the area in an all-out battle against both MOMA and the Pompidou Centre. The Dashanzi area is not the economical option that it once was, however. Just as in the East Village area of New York in the 70’s, the steep rise in ground rental prices (tripled since 2002) have caused many artists to move out. Heading east along the same highway that leads to the 798 Art District we find the East End Art District, one of the new locations chosen as residence by many artists and which is now home to such well known galleries as China Art and Archive Warehouse, China Contemporary Art Institute, Universal Studios –Beijing Art Centre and the Belgian gallery F2. Even further east we come to Feijacun, a community of artists set up in another abandoned factory, many of whom were victims of the destruction of the Suojiacun community in 2005, declared illegal by the government. The initiative most likely to survive and continue, however, is the project being carried out in Songzhuang, a small town to the east of Beijing which the government intends to be the cultural centre of China. Whatever happens in the 798 Art District, it will always be remembered as the place where Chinese art came out of the shadows and, under the watchful eye of the government, found its personality and worth in the international art scene.

Selected Galleries

Galleria Continua – A prestigious Italian gallery opened at the end of 2005 which has held such acclaimed exhibitions as the one-man shows of Chen Zen and Daniel Buren. 798 Photo Gallery – The first Chinese gallery to specialize in photography. Although it mainly shows work by Chinese photographers, there are occasional exhibitions of well known foreign photographers. Houses a comprehensive photography bookshop. White Space Beijing – A branch of the Alexander Ochs gallery in Berlin with interesting collaborations and exchanges between Chinese and European artists. South Gate Space – Mixed-media space run by Huang Rui, used for concerts, performances, theatre, opera and so on. China Art Seasons – Singapore-based gallery with an extensive show of Chinese and south-east Asian art. Also artists residence. Marella Gallery – Milanese gallery established in the 798 Art District in 2005 after spending some years producing itinerant exhibitions of video art. Work by new and established Chinese artists. 25000 Cultural Transmission Center – As well as being a centre of exhibitions, conferences and artists in residence, this is the centre of the ‘Long March’ project in which group of artists emulate the 25,000 li (100,000 km) march completed by Mao and his Red Army. Chinese Contemporary – British gallery of 300 square meters dedicated to post ‘89 Chinese artists.

Jorge Larrañaga is art critic and freelance photographer based in Tokyo (Japan).