When I visited 798 Art District last week it seemed that the hundreds of workers had finally finished their years long work. There were no ditches on the side of the road that you had to jump over, no dust in the air nor large construction vehicles that you would have to dodge every once in a while. Instead you could kind of see that the space had found some kind of uneasy peace. Chinese and 老外 all strolled along the newly built pathways to see the dozens of exhibitions in galleries deposited intermittently throughout the massive factory complex.
To me it's the site of 798 that's most enjoyable. Searching for the one gallery that you may want to visit that day is almost like an adventure through a land filled with Mao-era propaganda slogans (which can still be found scrolled in huge characters on several of the factory walls), abandoned factory buildings, the hiss of steam, the smell of chemicals and a maze of dark stairways and corridors. When I visited 798 for the first time during my first few months in Beijing, it was still largely under construction. Dust was everywhere, buildings were being torn down while new exhibitions were being prepared across the street and the shouts of the 农民工 over the roar of their machinery mixed with the conversations of visitors discussing art in English, German, Chinese and Italian. I felt it stood perfectly for the Beijing that I had encountered at that time, an international city that was in the midst of a constant construction process in order to prepare for the coming Olympic games.
I had decided to visit 798 to attend the opening of Rauschenburg's 'Lotus Series' at the Dafeng gallery, which when I checked the map laid at the total opposite end of the massive complex from where I had entered. So I decided to take my time to get there, taking in the sights and exhibitions on the way. This is the best way to enjoy a trip, in a thirty minute walk you can take in shows by Chinese and international artists in several genres. This variety does have its drawbacks, because if your unlucky, the casual visitor (me) can be doomed to visit gallery after gallery of banal "Chinese Contemporary Art" of the kind that is destined to be hung in trendy Oriental-themed hotels or bars around the world but never in a museum. But... and this is a big but, there is always the chance to encounter something of the unexpected that proves you don't have to have beautiful women, Red Guard uniforms, nudity, or huge smiling faces to say something deeply profound about China. Yang Shaobing's 'X Blind-Spot' was that show.
Now to say I stumbled on Yang's brilliant show at the Long March Space proves just how much of a novice I am to China's art scene, but that's just what I did. Having just left a gallery that was showing some sculpture that still managed to be interesting despite the fact that most of the models were naked women or women wearing Red Guard uniforms, a theme that I have seen countless times, I was making my way down one of the side streets when I see a large white wall with 'X-Blind Spot' written in black text. If I was more experienced I would know that this is the Long March Space, an exhibition space that has a history of great work spanning several years, or I would see the name Yang Shaobing and my pulse would quicken at the chance to see his incredible skill with the brush as it addresses some of the social issues of the time... but I didn't recognize either one. I just decided to walk in because the name was pretty far out and there were some strange noises going on behind the curtain that everyone was walking through to get in.
I brushed past the curtain and was greeted by a loud roar, when I turned around I saw that it was actually the soundtrack to a video of what seemed to be a mining cart traveling underground projected in the wall right next to the door. When a visitor entered or left the gallery they would lift the curtain, suddenly flooding the projection screen with light. This phenomenon of light and dark, positive and negative was a recurring theme throughout the whole exhibition. I can't spout the deeper reasons for why the artist worked with these topics, read his artist's statement for that, all I can say is that the show was able to examine mining in China, a dangerous job that is often done by some of society's most vunerable, in a way that was exciting and profound.
The exhibition used several different mediums to tackle this topic: including video, large paintings of everything from abstracted closeups of miners faces to almost photo-realistic depictions of medical materials all done as if he was painting from the negative of color film, and light boxes filled with photographs of more medical materials and specimens arranged in a beautiful structure... well you just have to see it. And really that sums it up... you really just have to see it for yourself. I definitely recommend the four screen video display that mixes all aspects of mining underground, the starkness of the mines surrounding area above ground and footage from sugery at a hospital to help miners who have lung trouble, each screen showing a different topic. The slow-motion footage gradually slides from positive to negative and then back again. A miner's headlight, a familar beacon in the darkness, becomes a strangely colored black dot in a field of bright white; a scene from a hospital room becomes almost nauseating as the patient's skin turns from yellow to blue. Such transformations give the viewer a better appreciation of the darkness that the miners must work in and some of the tragedy that befalls them as they succumb to the years of inhaling coal dust.
Rauschenburg's "Lotus Series" was also very impressive. Though I didn't feel it hit me as hard as Mr.Yang's show, it was still great to see the master's work. Basically, Rauschenburg had come to China in the 80's for a cultural exchange trip and took pictures during his time here. In 2007, for his last project, he used those pictures as a source for the "Lotus Series", always including a colorful print of a lotus with every one of the 12 pictures. Did the lotus symbolize a belief in Buddhism and reincarnation, a topic he may have been thinking about as he reached his last years?... I don't know and I'll never have the chance to ask him as he passed away last May, but I did get the chance to talk to Rauschenburg's printing assistant, Bill Goldston. What I came away with from his conversation was that these pictures, which I thought could stand for records of time and history, where seen by the artist as removed from the time and the place that they were taken. Looking at it this way the subtle differences in architecture, language and clothing that you find make the work more of an artistic statement than a social document. Rauschenburg becomes just another artist who is trying to make sense of the environment that he is in (coming to China in the 80's this is no easy task by any means) but did the time between his trip and when he started to create the work, weaken his links and memories to the area or embolden them?
Next topic... love abroad.
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