The much anticipated James Cohan Gallery opens in Shanghai … but gets a dress rehearsal as my baby’s 100th day party+TAIAN LU 泰安路, the film premiere

Arthur Solway has been working the Shanghai realtors, business bureau and visa offices for almost a year now. A task that requires heaps of patience, know how, and a good, resilient spirit. Arthur’s got all that and more. His ambitious work is quickly coming to fruition – He’s landed this PHAT Art Deco building in the center of the French Concession, with big yard (some of which the neighbors hang their laundered underwear in) and will open July 10th with a group show of the gallery's greatists: Bill Viola, Roxy Paine (who I thought was a woman all this time), Jeff Koons, Richard Long, Wim Wenders (who I thought was a filmaker all this time), etc.. Arthur's determined not only to educate the Shanghai public about western contemporary art but also to mine the region for hungry collectors of the stuff too. He’s already had a great start last year with a big Nam Jun Paik sale at the SH Contemporary Fair and while not exactly going strong since, we’re sure he’ll do just fine. Last week, as a way to test run the space, our little Rui had his 100th day party there. While most folks were away for the season, weekend, etc. It was a fine time. We also premiered our latest film TAIAN LU 泰安路 In Shanghai for the guests. TAIAN LU 泰安路 was a commissioned short for IA’s China Now project and reflects ‘my China’ at the time it was made- it stars Shanghai's most famous abstract painter DingYi as well as a lot of other folks. Below is a list of venues where it’s playing in the UK this summer-more info*
Below that is a statement about the film.

Hayward Gallery (Concrete Bar), Brewhouse Theatre and Arts Centre , BBC Big Screens, City Art Centre, Filming East Festival, The Yorkshire Waterways Museum, Chinese Arts Centre, Park Lane Intercontinental, Dulwich Picture Gallery, Filmhouse, Edinborough, Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London


TAIAN LU 泰安路 PAL HD 1080i 13 mins
From the point of view of a mixed couple on the verge of having a (Euro-Asian) child, the new China metaphorically comes alive as a concept that is at once universally pervasive and persistently elusive. Mixing documentary, fiction and fantastical elements the story unfolds as a strange day-in-the-life odyssey of this young couple. The story centers around Taian Lu No.6, a dilapidated colonial era building, now home to an eclectic cross section of Shanghai’s demography. Through the daily conundrums of the houses’ residents, a cross-cultural television show, brief tele-conference forays with New York’s Chinatown and the waking dreams of a pregnant mother, the extended family of man in the 21st century is told. Urban China comes alive as a series of fantasies and facts. Mixing allegory, class stratification and poetry, this film is a frenetic and impressionistic ode to a China as a global concept- enrapt in an accelerated and often erratic attempt to do too much too soon.

Beijing2: Saturday 798 Openings, Spaceman, water problems Soft Landings, and a lot of orange snacks

Right outside the Beijing TokyoArt projects in Beijing's 798 gallery district was some serious water problem that had about 15 guys in blue jump suits down in a trench wrestling several rubber hoses and muddy pipes. The gallery going public, uniformly dressed in black, hobnobbed their way through the mess to the table with a lot of orange colored snacks displayed. Art? or refreshment?
Inside the gallery, mountains. Feng Boyi, one of the busier indie curators in China helped put on Yuan Shun's outer worldly installation Soft Landing - a moonscape complete with smoke machine. Hovelling about the scene was the artist himself clad in a space suit (something with uniforms today). Song Dong, Feng Boyi, Mu Chen and Shao Yinong watched as the orange-snack chomping audience viewed the installation and then photos of the installation and then drawings of the installation. I give this exhibition a star, happy face, an A- for effort, something like that

Yin Xiuzhen, watching her and Song Dong's child climb on the mub mountains, tells about her recent trip to NY where she participated in Brooklyn Museum's Women's Work exhibition which included a seat at a recreated Judy Chicago Dinner Party table. While the geusts were females from all over the world (a great opportunity for global art girl talk) Yin only spoke with Lin Tianmiao who also spoke Chinese.

Carol Lu one of the youngest/oldest, most promising curator/critic/no-it-alls about the scene (married happily to Liu Ding- one of the most promising young/old artists of his generation) curated "The Weight of Reality" at Marella Gallery which sported salami sandwiches (being an Italian outfit and all). The Weight was Wang Jianwei I guess who just by proximity one can feel the Weight of Reality. He exhibited an archaic, early 90's video which besides looking very vintage-conceptual was esoteric to the point of unwatchablity. Over dinner he reminisced about the days where all the artists could fit into one room and everybody was poor but passionate and exhibitions were indeed renegade or maybe the government was just too intolerant and couldn't really see the dollar value in it. Wu Xiaojun, also in the show departing altogether from photography, showed a neon sculptural thing which was almost knocked over by a German two year old; and Li Yu & Liu Bo showed some light boxes depicting, in different degrees of surreality, discontent with things in general. In the background Bea and Javier argued about being late to a "Get it Louder's" architecture/urbanity forum out in Yuanmingyuan 's East Gate architectural outpost. Wengwei and Pauline Yao the other two members of "The Contractors" posing very pop-starish by the salami sandwiches whispered about band non-practice.
And then there was the overcrowded livery cab ride to dinner with Ros from Universal Pictures where Pauline is curating an exhibition and having interim headaches with the egotistical, anxious and eternally absent bosses.
But that's Daily Life in Beijing's burgeoning art world or maybe it's just the Weight of Reality or Real Estate or maybe its Dailg Life who knows?