人民网
Fri,Sep 27,2013
English>>Life & Culture

Editor's Pick

The flowing colors of 798 art district (4)

By Zhang Yuchen (China Daily)    13:25, September 27, 2013
Email|Print|Comments       twitter     facebook     Sina Microblog     reddit    

When Xu and Huang organized the Dashanzi International Art Festival in 2004, artists predicted it was inevitable that the 798 district would become like the SoHo area in New York. At the time, they tried hard to turn 798 into a purely cultural space and platform by recommending the arrival of good galleries and institutes.

As 798 has attracted media and public attention, both at home and abroad, it has also become another cultural landmark in Beijing.

Li Xiangqun, a professor at the Fine Arts School at Tsinghua University, submitted a proposal on "retaining an old industrial architectural heritage, retaining a developing art district" to Beijing Municipal People's Congress during the two sessions in 2004.

As a result, the 798 Art Zone received a great deal of attention from the Chaoyang District Government and the Beijing Municipal Government. Coordinating with the Seven Star Group, the Chaoyang government set up the 798 Art Zone management office.

After the office was established, the Chaoyang government invested 120 million yuan on the overall planning of 798.

Roads were built and foundations dug but then, for a year in 2008, all this had to take a back seat with the buildup to, and arrival of, the Beijing Olympics.

Zhang Guohua, executive vice-president of the 798 Art Zone Administrative Committee, regards the zone's rise as an inevitable phase for the cultural sector along with China's social development.

He admits that today's 798 is no longer the ideal place for the creation of art, or the place to display it. "We could attempt to slow the pace of commercialization," he says. "Now, only art-related businesses, such as galleries and design companies, are allowed to settle in the zone."

Frantic negotiations

Up a steep flight of steps in dim evening light, a handful of women are busy with frantic phone-call negotiations at the Thinking Hand Studio, but Huang appears calm and eager to talk about the art zone, which he once initiated and tried to preserve.

In March 2007, on the orders of the Seven Star Group, the property company in the factory district, Huang was refused permission to rent studios, and was forced to move out of the zone.

"Like a speeding train lost to posterity, 798 has already missed out on the chance of standing eternally in the arts world," Huang said, pointing to a declining taste in cultural events and stalls in the art zone recently. "The next step is to know how to guarantee the quality of culture it presents."

Mao, the artist, also suggests that commercial development should take place outside the art zone.

"The value of the art zone needs to avoid being exploited inside but to be established outside," he said. "That is what the government should do."

【1】 【2】 【3】 【4】

(Editor:DuMingming、Gao Yinan)

We Recommend

Most Viewed

Day|Week|Month

Key Words

Links