This past weekend Peter and I, with Andrea and Guillermo, two other students from UCLA who are interning with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, went to the Dashanzi/Factory 798 art gallery district. It's a former commune/microelectronics factory converted (partially) into a huge arts gallery/studio complex. The scale of the place is oh-so-Chinese, and the faded Communist slogans all over the factory walls are great. The art was actually really good. Photos, sculpture, paintings, all types of media. The pictures below include a funny take on the famed Terracotta Soldiers of Xi'an, with a pregnant lady soldier, whom I couldn't resist standing by to compare bellies. I'm already planning my next trip, and maybe also to Caochangdi, the next great arts complex outside Beijing, where China's most famed artist, Ai Weiwei, has moved to (formerly in Dashanzi also).
Despite some super modern gallery space that rivals New York and a cafe which served dumplings with a pork and pate filling with a garlic butter sauce, you definitely knew you were in China because there was no air conditioning in the 90+ degree weather, and there was still commune housing and everyday Chinese life mixed in. We saw, for example, clothes hanging out to dry, a litter of newborn kittens being fussed over by an old man, and shirtless old guys hanging out playing chinese chess right outside the galleries. So wonderful.
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