The day of my medical tourism, Lady of tdaxp and I visited the Dashanzi 798 Arts District, the “it” place for the “it” crowd in Beijing. 大山子 is a curiosity, because the openness it reveals is a product of the new China, but it may soon be turned down to make way for that other aspect of connectivity, openness, and economic freedom: a real estate boom.
So join us, and take a quick tour of the interesting, political, provocative, and downright strange modern art that has finally landed in China. While I prefer more traditional fair, you won’t be disappointed…
Especially if you enjoy DPRK Studies or One Free Korea.
Political symbols were common fair in 798, such as this juxtaposition of American and Soviet iconography
Description In several places North Korean Communist Party symbols were used, and in the “Long March” exhibit as part of a common on the events of 1989…
… no, not the Tiananmen Square Massacre, but the No U-Turns Protest of a few months beforehand. No U-Turns was a struggle fro art-for-the-sake-of-art, and lacked the larger political resonance of freedom, democracy, and the like. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see a large-scale exhibit on the success of people power in the country.
Of course, not everything was so weighty. Faux-propaganda-posters urge the view to “Read Chairman Mao’s book” at McDolands…
I’m Loving It while other posters, not pictured here, included the face of Denx Xiaopeng with his exortation to “let somebody get rich first.”
Other exhibits likewise were on both sides of the “actually meaningful” divide. A moving reproduction of an audiotape from 1982 retells the heroic death of a girl’s uncle in China’s (now never mentioned) invasion of Vietnam.
Description While outside meaningless anarchy symbols are exactly as empty in the East as they are in the West
Description And Red-Star-Over-Monkey comments (I assume) on Red Star Over China.
Or maybe it just looked cool.
Of course, not everything was political. Reactions to popular fashion were here and there
Description And some pretty-if-strange paintings held my attention
Scuba-diver-and-pond Two chicks, either part of an experimental avant-guard piece or just someone’s pets (we think not food) had adventures among themselves.
Lastly, as we walked out (foolishly, foolishly, foolishly into the 5:00 PM rush-hour) we saw what ever hipster district needs: fashionable hipster hooligans. Sigh.
Box-meets-plants That was our visit to Dashanzi 798. While Prince Gong’s Mansion was a work of art turned into a factory, all of 798 was factories turned into houses of art. Neet, no? I hope you enjoyed the visit!
