798 Art District

Yesterday, Eleanor and I made a day trip to the fabled 798 District across town. Located in the former state-owned microchip and electronics district, 798 has now become a bustling community for Chinese and expat artists alike. It's hipster meets grit, as the four block radius of factory buildings and hangars have been quite sloppily transformed into low and high end galleries all for the enjoyment of art goers and those just interested in the absurd.

Running throughout the area are a network of above ground pipes, bringing heat and utilities to dusty show rooms. The streets are lined with broken mortar, cinderblock, glass shards and other construction debris--not what one would expect when one thinks of the meticulously groomed lawns and exhibits in the US and Europe. Speckling the street-scape are unheated hovels, mixed with upscale coffee shops and western bars, and then peppered with a mix of regal, all-glass gallery facades sandwiched between walls and walls of graffiti. Think of it as "Beijing Bohemia". Yet, somehow 798 district lives up to the countless contradictions that make this city so unique and unlike most things in China it doesn't once strike me as fake.

Where there once was a highly regulated governmental economic zone, now stands a block of freedom of expression and satirical jabs at chinese society. It's a reliquary to the great speed in which Chinese absorbs, mimics, forgets and adapts itself to a modernizing world. Confusion seems to be the main themes of the artists and I get distinct feeling that much like Chinese culture, chinese art is facing an identity crisis following a century of such vast change. I think that's what makes the art so captivating is that it is not refined and gentrified. It's raw and scathing--an itch that needs to be scratched by the Chinese people.