Art Wars in Beijing

Beijing is the home to a massive sprawl of art and design known as the 798 district, a converted industrial sector that now makes a home for creative people of all kinds. But there are struggles going on here -- as in all burgeoning bohemian art communities -- struggles to define what art is, and struggles to establish its value to society.

In the looming shadow of the global financial crisis -- the topic that weighs heavily on every front page and at the top of every news broadcast -- property costs are rising in the 798, an area of old industrial Beijing that lies right in the corridor between the city's center and its ultra-modern international airport. As costs rise, tenants are worried about what will happen to their galleries.

There is art represented here from schools as diverse as conceptual to expressionist, from craft to surrealist. I've added some pictures to this post so you can see what's going with some of this art.

Surreal art by Xiao Se (萧瑟) at the Fifth Element Gallery.

To be honest, I was quite shocked at the candidness of some of this art. In a country where media is heavily controlled (even bloggers, right?) the 798 is a bastion of open expression, a home of sometimes sharp social criticism. On my visit, a one-day visit that only led me through less than half of the art sprawl, I was struck especially by the exhibition of the late Chen Yufei's work, that portrays an urban nightmare landscape riddled with commercialism, overpopulation, and dissonance.

In one piece we find a disturbing superposition of images: a man sitting on an english-language newspaper, the 21-st Century times, reporting on some financial crisis or another, holding a cell phone and in the sky, malevolent faces leer from the face of a 100 yuan note in the sky. Writing in the sky echoes the phrase on the face of every note of Chinese currency, "中国人民银行," or, "The People's Bank of China."

There's a gallery hosting art that plays with chinese writing itself, blending expressionism with Chinese writing. Another hosts craft art that truly brings a surreal feeling to the world around it, as though you've left the real world and entered a surreal painting. But what's inside the galleries is only half the story.

Outside the galleries, on streets regularly patrolled by squads of ten or so guards, grafitti artists are winning the rent war. From lowly tags to massive frescoes, the renegade urban artform has definitely made its colorful mark on the drab exterior of the 798.

Grafitti is not allowed here. Cameras are in place all over the complex, inside and out, to prevent it. All to no avail.

Sometimes it's striking to see the difference in skill represented between what's outside, and what's inside the gallery. One exhibit comes to mind...a room full of empty easels, all brightly painted a different colour, so tightly-packed it's hard to move, and all in a room so big it could house a small jet plane. The concept is interesting, but in execution the piece lacks the gusto and wow of the fresco found on a wall outside in the open air, a piece entitled, "say hello to big 爸爸" or, "daddy."

Whether the graffiti deserves the same praise as the work inside the galleries is still a point of heated debate, but one thing is clear: Art -- of all kinds -- is alive and well in Beijing's 798 district. 口

More photos from the 798 District below >