Belgian art collection Guy Ullens opened a museum for contemporary Chinese art in Beijing in 2007, but has had tough times since then and is now divesting from the project and looking for partners to take over management. From...
From the New York Times Style section: In a former factory space in the city’s booming 798 arts district, 50 works specially commissioned for the exhibition commingle with the original couture gowns by Dior and John Galliano...
New York’s Pace Wildenstein gallery is the first Manhattan gallery to open a branch in Beijing’s 798 arts district, according to the New York Times: The $20 million project is scheduled to open on Aug. 8, in time for...
798 Art Zone (Chinese: 798艺术区), or Dashanzi Art District Cafes, shops, and galleries gentrify Beijing’s Dashanzi Art District, which is named “798” after the converted factories that now show some of...
A Discovery Channel documentary, now available on YouTube, presents an informative picture of the artistic rebirth of Dashanzi Art District, also known as Factory 798, in northeastern Beijing. : Often compared with New...
A Belgian businessman, philanthropist and art collector has built a new gallery in the Dashanzi art district in Beijing to house contemporary art: Baron Ullens, who had business interests in China for many years, has collected...
From Guardian Unlimited: Ten years ago, Xu ZhenÔºàXu’s siteÔºâ was the archetypal garret-dwelling artist, scraping a living in a Shanghai apartment with barely room to swing a cat. To prove the point, he found a cat and swung it. The artist claims that the animal was already dead when he made the 45-minute performance video, […]
Reuters and CNS all reported on the female terracotta warrior sculptures by Norwegian artist Marian Heyerdahl, who had her exhibition in Beijing’s 798 Art District. Heyerdahl made her works by duplicating the original terracotta warriors from Qin Shi Huangdi’s mausoleum in their original scale. From last September Heyerdahl lived in Xi’an Lintong to closely observe […]
From VOA (link): Huang Rui, an artist and one of the organizers of the festival, says certain themes are off limits. “Some officials don’t like artworks with themes of leaders since Mao, or thoughts of the leaders, or the Tiananmen Incident,” Huang says. “These, for them, are very sensitive. In fact, these factors are like […]
From Guardian Unlimited (link): Blogging for this year’s Dashanzi festival has made me appreciate this more strongly than ever. So, as a final post, a few self-critical thoughts inspired by two of the less celebrated exhibitions: Removing the Ladder at Platform China and Satirist and Catcher at Anni Studio. …It is a kind of freedom, […]
From Guardian Unlimited (link): There is an intriguing battle between the forces of commerce and politics in the Chinese art world, and Dashanzi is slap-bang in the middle. Artists, curators and gallery owners generally hate talking about such worldly matters, but they are often caught between communism and capitalism, the authorities and the market, the […]
From Guardian Unlimited (link): The theme of this year’s Dashanzi contemporary art festival is Beijing, but it might just as easily be money. Cash is used for political ends by veteran artist, Huang Rui, whose “Chairman Mao 10,000rmb” spells out Cultural Revolution slogans with banknotes. The same material is exploited by young artist Wang Sishun, […]
From The Independent (link): Red Flag-waving Chinese soldiers, muscle-bound peasants, nudes, dancing girls and women soldiers, and scores of Mao Zedong pictures, sculptures and photographs. Whatever would the Great Helmsman have thought? China’s Cultural Revolution, which began 40 years ago this month, is the theme of this year’s Dashanzi International Arts Festival in Beijing. Much […]
From The Hindu (link): “THE first time I sold my contemporary art collection was around three years ago and I tripled my investment. If I had waited till today the same works would have gone for 10 times what I sold them for!” rues Robert Bernell, a Beijing-based art publisher and collector. Indeed, as China’s […]
From The Christian Science Monitor (link): Chinese modern art has been pushing the borders of the acceptable. But just as limits seemed to fall, the local culture police struck back, albeit politely. Three galleries at the chic Dashanzi art area were told to remove more than 20 paintings in recent weeks, all with political themes. […]
From Guardian Unlimited (link): China’s censors may not fully understand contemporary art, but they know what they don’t like. Since the start of this month, police and propaganda officials have launched their...
From China Daily: Art dealers, architects and designers who helped create the freewheeling Dashanzi Art District, where artists can meet the masses, are planning to stage a festival to celebrate Beijing’s emergence as a global cultural centre… The culture-fest, which runs through May 22, will also showcase digital media artworks and new-millennium minstrels “who will […]
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