Come here Cookie...
- The Author, The Kolon's Residence in Beijing
We went on to 798 District and were lost amidst the numbers of galleries. I was very taken by the level of talent in this place. If I thought that Hong Kong blew my mind, that Hanoi bowled me over, and Shanghai pushed my appreciation of decadence up a few notches - Beijing is the centre womb that gives birth to a new international level of art development. This place, even on a cold weekday, was humming with visitors, artists, you can strike up a conversation here, enquire about their work without being made to feel like you have to purchase something. That was refreshing, and was even being given some free catalogues on outstanding work that I definitely will use as brain food for my second collection.
First off the block was an exhibition by Zhang Bin called "I just do not want to talk..." and it showcased portraits of sombre, moody oriental women. They sat in sombre poses in their drawing rooms, stood in the fields and a few pieces were interjected with symbolic company - the bird that flew away, the waiting frog prince begging for a magical form turning kiss, a unicorn, and an antler hat. But it was her refined fingers and toes that showed the rough big proportions of the rest of her head, shoulders and hips. But her eyes were ever engaging, beady, sad, and provocative.
Guan Hong Chen came up as someone I could identify more with his heady, strong strokes of sculpting paste planting a field of marigolds. His work is one that I will look for and set as a bar. We share similar inclinations despite that his medium is in oil, and mine in acrylic. I spend a good long time going in between his pieces only to realise he was standing behind me all the time. We spoke very little as his English wasn't too good and my Mandarin was a despair, but he was helpful and gave me a lot of reference material that I can bring home to start work on.
Carmen Zou did her clothing culture from the Confucion through the Cultural Revolution and 21st Century line, and did good she did. If fancy outlandish interpretation of clothing is not your kind of thing, you may pass this one as boring but she does bring out the rebellious streak in your inner fashionista and if you have the ka-ching, you can get the item. Again, no buy but try, you still get smiles from the girls there.
Our last stop is at the Faurschou gallery in which we only chose one film due to time shortage but it was from the "Women without men" collection. We watched "Zarin" - anorexic prostitute that ran off to a hammam to wash herself of her sins of pleasing these men, after finding out that these men who had used her all had no faces. In her journey to the purification, all the men on the streets were the same. In the end, after having scrubbed thin her skin and bleeding. she ran out only to find things have not changed. In terror, she ran off to the unknown future. In other four parallel sequences, Shirin Neshat portrayed the lives of these five Iranian women in 1953, an important year in recent history as the democratically elected Prime Minister was removed in a coup d'etat mounted by the British and American forces (whose task is to reinstate the Shah to avoid nationalisation of their country's oil resources. I found the film disturbing and realise that this could be as close as I can get to a portrayal of reality in a country that is so different from mine, yet faces so similar in the challenges that women have.
After an exhaustive day, we still haven't covered the entire place. I definitely want to have a studio of my own, which is housed in a former factory. I want brick walls to hang my canvas sketches, I want to visit my fellow artists, I want to talk about my work, I want to share, I want to immerse and soak myself in this environment, I want to expose myself to the ever growing events in 798 District, Beijing blew my mind in how encouraging they are in reviving the underground art movement that had flourished tremendously since the revolution.
Now as I write to you from the Kolons, we have decided to rename the family's cat because she didn't seem to be responding. I don't know if this is a creative process but we are definitely getting ready to leave Cookie at home so that we can head out for some jiaozhi. This place I heard, it has all kinds.
This is Vivien, reporting from the Kolons, in Chaoyang, in Beijing (although I know I should have done it the other way around).
Patty's driver, Mr. Chen came to pick me up at 9:30am to meet up for a trip up to her studio. This was a good drive up to Huantie Art Zone, which Patty housed her new studio within a former warehouse. It's industrial looking, completely full utility, and my dream! She has done a few canvas pieces (WIP) but I am just so impressed with the whole work going on. The countryside was inspiring, calm in a way, yet evoking a long time romance of words, actions, thoughts and goals of the bygone. Channeling all these into your "day in the office" seems mandatory enjoyment.
We went on to 798 District and were lost amidst the numbers of galleries. I was very taken by the level of talent in this place. If I thought that Hong Kong blew my mind, that Hanoi bowled me over, and Shanghai pushed my appreciation of decadence up a few notches - Beijing is the centre womb that gives birth to a new international level of art development. This place, even on a cold weekday, was humming with visitors, artists, you can strike up a conversation here, enquire about their work without being made to feel like you have to purchase something. That was refreshing, and was even being given some free catalogues on outstanding work that I definitely will use as brain food for my second collection.First off the block was an exhibition by Zhang Bin called "I just do not want to talk..." and it showcased portraits of sombre, moody oriental women. They sat in sombre poses in their drawing rooms, stood in the fields and a few pieces were interjected with symbolic company - the bird that flew away, the waiting frog prince begging for a magical form turning kiss, a unicorn, and an antler hat. But it was her refined fingers and toes that showed the rough big proportions of the rest of her head, shoulders and hips. But her eyes were ever engaging, beady, sad, and provocative.
Guan Hong Chen came up as someone I could identify more with his heady, strong strokes of sculpting paste planting a field of marigolds. His work is one that I will look for and set as a bar. We share similar inclinations despite that his medium is in oil, and mine in acrylic. I spend a good long time going in between his pieces only to realise he was standing behind me all the time. We spoke very little as his English wasn't too good and my Mandarin was a despair, but he was helpful and gave me a lot of reference material that I can bring home to start work on.
Carmen Zou did her clothing culture from the Confucion through the Cultural Revolution and 21st Century line, and did good she did. If fancy outlandish interpretation of clothing is not your kind of thing, you may pass this one as boring but she does bring out the rebellious streak in your inner fashionista and if you have the ka-ching, you can get the item. Again, no buy but try, you still get smiles from the girls there.
Our last stop is at the Faurschou gallery in which we only chose one film due to time shortage but it was from the "Women without men" collection. We watched "Zarin" - anorexic prostitute that ran off to a hammam to wash herself of her sins of pleasing these men, after finding out that these men who had used her all had no faces. In her journey to the purification, all the men on the streets were the same. In the end, after having scrubbed thin her skin and bleeding. she ran out only to find things have not changed. In terror, she ran off to the unknown future. In other four parallel sequences, Shirin Neshat portrayed the lives of these five Iranian women in 1953, an important year in recent history as the democratically elected Prime Minister was removed in a coup d'etat mounted by the British and American forces (whose task is to reinstate the Shah to avoid nationalisation of their country's oil resources. I found the film disturbing and realise that this could be as close as I can get to a portrayal of reality in a country that is so different from mine, yet faces so similar in the challenges that women have.
After an exhaustive day, we still haven't covered the entire place. I definitely want to have a studio of my own, which is housed in a former factory. I want brick walls to hang my canvas sketches, I want to visit my fellow artists, I want to talk about my work, I want to share, I want to immerse and soak myself in this environment, I want to expose myself to the ever growing events in 798 District, Beijing blew my mind in how encouraging they are in reviving the underground art movement that had flourished tremendously since the revolution.
Now as I write to you from the Kolons, we have decided to rename the family's cat because she didn't seem to be responding. I don't know if this is a creative process but we are definitely getting ready to leave Cookie at home so that we can head out for some jiaozhi. This place I heard, it has all kinds.
This is Vivien, reporting from the Kolons, in Chaoyang, in Beijing (although I know I should have done it the other way around).
