So Im in Beijing re-curating a semi-pre-curated show and after a day on the subway to Tongzhou (a nondescript hellhole suburb city that harbors many a Beijing artist) I meet Zhang Dali, an old war buddy of mine in a Sichuan restaurant decorated with shiny new, violent looking, farm tools. Dali, fresh back from NY told of his exhibition's opening night where both he and his gallerist, Ludivic of 'Chinese Contemporary' (now there's a name that evades any enigmatic misreadings- not like Jack the Pelican or the Wrong Gallery or Oriental Vista - which points one in an altogether wrong direction - this here Chinese Contemporary (I always wanna say (con)temporary but know it's not true) is as clear as Toys R Us) raked in a whopping 400,000 USD each. Of course this info came out after a (the first of many) very very spicy meal and half a bottle of Wu Liangye and the waitresses were kicking us out using that old Chinese torture method of telling us very politely every 3-4 minutes that they have, "so so sorry we have closed"
Anyway however it came out Beijing was all dollarchat
I meet Sue in Sanlitun- Once upon a time the only place for a drink in Beijing has now been completely obliterated and now flanked by encroaching mega malls is haven to bad coffee shops, preying bootleg DVD salesmen and girls that want to be you girlfriend. NOW on the west side of the street another SUPER mega mall designed in part by anybody who's anybody in the architectural field- not sure how they divided the labor here or maybe they just paid a fee to use the names. You can see the the list of these heavy hitters, some more surprising that others, advertised as sexy creative types on the mirrored wall outside of the construction site: LoTek, Shop Architects, Kenjo Kugma, etc.
Sue Qiu aka Qiu Keman, another old dear friend from back in the day who has lived both in Roma and Barcelona for a combined total of almost 10years and who speaks all of those languages plus English Mandarin and god knows what ever other Chinese dialects, tells Gianfranco, an Italian friend who like me is living in Shanghai, about her plans for an artist service center in Beijing. A place maybe like Art in general or Harvestworks in NYC. Sue recently back and feeling the fever here sees that anything is impossibly possible.
Gianfranco, a little conflicted about living in Shanghai vs. Beijing (like most people in China in general - foreign or not- it seems) works for a machinery company called WAM which was recently accosted by an Australian client for shipment that contained an alarming rate of asbestos - apparently something that's business as usual in the middle kingdom.
O well
1 comment:
Wei, last time I saw those two at the same table must have been somewhere in Sanlitun. Though it's been 10 years they still look the same, and still very fine. Please say hello. Sooner or later I'll go back...
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