Key Words:Spring Outing
The Beijing 798 Art Zone, named after the 798 factory built in the 1950s, is located in the northeast corner of Beijing city
Description
The Beijing 798 Art Zone, named after the 798 factory built in the 1950s, is located in the northeast corner of Beijing city. The area is also known as the Dashanzi Art District (DAD) as it sits in Dashanzi zone. The art zone covers an area of 0.6 square kilometers, with Jiuxianqiao Road to the west, Beijing-Baotou railway to the east, Jiangtai Road to the south, and Jiuxianqiao Road North to the north. The Beijing 798 Art Zone, characterized by modern art, has become the center of exhibition for Chinese culture and art, as well as the focal point of world-famous cultural and creative industries.
The area occupied by Beijing 798 Art Zone was once the location of the Beijing North China Wireless Joint Equipment Factory. Afterwards, the corporation moved out of the Dashanzi District and leased those plants (798 factory being one of them). The architectural style, featuring simple design and varied composition, follows the Bauhaus style. Attracted by ordered design, convenient traffic, and unique Bauhaus architecture, many art organizations and artists came to rent the vacant plants, and transformed them. Gradually there formed a district gathering galleries, art studios, cultural companies, fashion shops, and more. As the area where the early art organizations and artists moved in was located in the original area of the 798 plant, this place was named Beijing 798 Art Zone.
Currently, Beijing 798 Art Zone has attracted a great deal of attention from the media at home and abroad, and has become the new regional mark of Beijing. Galleries, design studios, art exhibits, artists' studios, fashionable shops, restaurants, and bars now assemble here. By January 2008, over 400 cultural organizations from France, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other countries and regions have settled down in the zone.
Nowadays, Beijing 798 Art Zone frequently holds important international art exhibitions and art activities, as well as fashion shows. In order to expand the reputation and influence of the art zone and to promote the development of modern art, the zone has held the Beijing 798 Art Festival (from the end of April to the end of May) every year since 2006. Another festival is the Beijing 798 Creative Art Festival (from the end of September to the end of October). The two festivals focus on exhibition and communication of culture and art.
Many worldwide political figures, movie stars, and social celebrities have not been able to resist the art zone's attraction and have come to pay a visit. Since 2004, Prime Ministers from Sweden, Switzerland, and Austria, ex-Prime Minister from Germany (Schroeder), the President of the European Union (Barroso), the daughter of Belgium's Prime Minister, President of the IOC Rogge, and the Belgium Crown Prince have all come here.
Interesting Places
798 Photo Gallery
Most of the photos are developed by the owner Chen Guangjun himself. Photos exhibited here are hard to see at other places.
798 Space
It mainly provides venues for press conferences, fashion shows and other activities. One thing that must be mentioned here is that since the buildings of 798 Space follow the Bauhaus style, the roofs of the buildings are curved serrated, which is even rare to see in Germany.
Lord of Salt
This restaurant is known for its authentic Sichuan dishes. The chef comes from a little place in Sichuan Province, and his cuisine has an authentic Sichuan flavor. Spiced chicken with a wonderful taste is his specialty.
Long March Cultural Communication Centre
The owner is Lu Jie, a famous contemporary artist. In this centre, you can see the record of one of his early events in which he led a group of artists following the Long March route and communicating with the local artists. Folk art exhibitions here will also arouse your interest. Paper cuts done by Gao Fenglian, an old folk artist, cover all the walls.
VINCENT CAFÉ (French)
It is the best little family-style restaurant here. The French owner Vincent, who started to learn cooking and management at the age of fifteen in France, used to be the chief manager in a famous French restaurant in the city. He is good at making sweet and savory pancakes. You can choose meat and vegetable filling or ice cream and fruit filling. SHOOTER (three different alcoholic drinks mix in a small cup) is also his spectacular creation.
Many other interesting places are awaiting you, and the great charm of it only can be felt when you wander here.
Artistic rebirth
The Dashanzi factory complex was vacated at around the time when most of Beijing's contemporary artist community was looking for a new home. Avant-garde art was frowned upon by the government and the community had traditionally existed on the fringes of the city. From 1984 to 1995, they worked in run-down houses near the Old Summer Palace in northwestern Beijing, until their eviction. Many then moved to the eastern Tong County (now Tongzhou District), more than an hour's drive from the city center.
Then in 1995, Beijing's Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), looking for storage and workshop space, set up in the now defunct Factory 706. The temporary move became permanent and in 2000 Sui Jianguo, Dean of the Department of Sculpture, located his own studio in the area. The cluttered sculpture workshops have always remained open for visitors to peek at the dozens of workers milling about.
By 2003, an artistic community of over 30 artists, designers, and publishers had developed. The first creatives to take residence in the district included artist Xu Yong, designer artist Huang Rui, publisher Robert Bernell, painter Li Songsong, and Beijing Tokyo Art Projects' Tabata Yukihito.
One of the first exhibition spaces, Beijing Tokyo Art Projects (BTAP, 北京东京艺术工程), was opened by Tabata Yukihito of Japan's Tokyo Gallery. Inside a 400-m² division of Factory 798's main area, this was the first renovated space featuring the high arched ceilings that would become synonymous with the Art District. BTAP's 2002 opening exhibition "Beijing Afloat" (
curator: Feng Boyi), drew a crowd of over 1,000 people and marked the beginning of the popular infatuation with the area. In 2002, Huang Rui(黄锐) and hutong photographer Xu Yong (徐勇) set up the 798 Space gallery (时态空间) next to BTAP. With its cavernous 1200-m² floor and multiple-arched ceilings at the center of Factory 798, it was and still is the symbolic center of the whole district. (Huang and Xu since designed at least seven spaces in the area and became the prime movers and de facto spokespersons of the District.) A glass-fronted café was set up in the former office section at the back of the 798 space, opening into a back alley now lined with studios and restaurants such as Huang's own At Café, and Cang Xin's #6 Sichuan
restaurant, the area's "canteen".
American Robert Bernell was the first foreigner to move in and brought his Timezone 8 Art Books bookshop, gallery and publishing office to a former factory canteen. One of Timezone 8's early employees was fashion designer Xiao Li, who along with her husband, performance artist Cang Xin, and Bernell, helped artists secure and rent spaces in the area.
Through word-of-mouth, artists and designers started trickling in, attracted to the vast cathedral-like spaces. Despite the lack of any conscious aesthetic in the Bauhaus-inspired style, which grounded architectural beauty in practical, industrial function, the swooping arcs and soaring chimneys had an uplifting effect on modern eyes, a sort of post-industrial chic. At the artists' requests, workers renovating the spaces preserved the prominent Maoist slogans on the arches, adding a touch of ironic " Mao kitsch" to the place.
In 2003, Lu Jie (卢杰) set up the Long March Foundation, an ongoing project for artistic re-interpretation of the historical
Long March, inside the 25,000Li Cultural Transmission Center (二万五千里文化传播中心). Around that time, Singapore owned China Art Seasons (北京季节画廊) opened for display for pan-Asian art, and was one of several new galleries setting up at that time.
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art was set up shortly thereafter in one of the largest factories in the complex, and after recent renovations, serves as the anchor institution and most prominent, and most visited, art landmarks in the area.
Notable exhibitions
Several exhibitions of note took place in 2003. In March 2004, "Transborder Language", part of the First Dashanzhi International Art Festival, (curators: Huang Rui and Thomas J. Berghuis) combined poetry installation and performance art. "Blue Sky Exposure" was held outdoors in southern Beijing and then relocated to the Art District. On April 13, despite widespread fear of public gatherings during SARS, the exhibitions "Reconstruction 798" (798 space) and "Operation Ink Freedom" (25,000Li Cultural Transmission Center) drew crowds of 5,000 and definitely confirmed the area's widespread appeal.
In July, with Beijing in full construction boom, Wang Wei's "Temporary Space" (curator: Philip Tinari) featured workers completely enclosing an area of the exhibition with a brick wall and then removing the bricks one by one. In September, "Left Hand - Right Hand" (curator: Feng Boyi) showcased Chinese and German sculptors at 798 Space and Daoyaolu Workshop A. Among the works was Sui Jianguo's enormous concrete sculpture "Mao's Right Hand", which is just what the name suggests, and an example of modern Chinese art's ironic reflections on history.
The first Beijing Biennale was held on September 18, 2003 at the Art District and featured 14 exhibitions. "Tui-Transfiguration" (curator: Wu Hung;tui here roughly meansmoult) featured photographs by East Village chronicler Rong Rong (荣荣) and his wife, Japan-born Inri (映里). Their works notably featured their own naked bodies in various strange locales, and were generally well-received despite being criticized by some as typical of the self-centered nature of much art in the area.
The first Dashanzi International Art Festival, directed by the ever-present Huang Rui, was held from April 24 to May 23, 2004. This first edition, namedRadiance and Resonance/Signals of Time(光•音/光阴), was beset by logistical problems arising from landowner Seven-Star Group's increasing irritation with the art community. As such, the festival became as much a public protest against the area's upcoming destruction that a showcase of art itself.
The environmental performance artist Brother Nut installed his project, “Nongfu Spring Market,” in 798 Art Zone in 2018. A commentary on pollution in China, this project received international attention including an article inThe New York Times. One of the most (in)famous displays at the Festival was performance artist He Yunchang having himself cemented shut in a wooden box with only two pipes for ventilation, and staying there for 24 hours before being chiseled out, prompting the proverbial " Is it art?" questionings. "Shock" exhibitions have become increasingly common in the Art District.
In 2008 there were notable exhibitions of foreign artists from Italy ("Rabarama. Italian Shape", AnniArt Gallery 798,): Rabarama and Cesare Berlingeri.
Travel Tips
1.It will take more than twenty minutes to walk around the Art Zone. You can buy a map at galleries or bars, or just wander.
2.You can either take a taxi or bus to here. However, taxis are not allowed to drive into the zone.
3.When night falls, the zone is poorly lit.
4.The art zone provides guide service. During the art festival, there are also volunteers to be your travel guides.
How to get to 798 Art District
By Subway:
Take Subway Line 14 and alight at Wangjing Nan Station. Get out from Exit B1. Then take bus 403 and get off at Dashanzi Lukou Dong Station or take a 20-minute northeast walk to the destination.
By Bus：
1. Take bus 401, 402, 405, 418, 445, 973, 988, 991 or Fast Transit Line 117 to Wangyefen Station or Dashanzi Lukou Nan Station.
2. Take bus 403, 593, 851 or 854 to Dashanzi Lukou Dong Station.
