Dà Shānzi 798 Art District 大山子艺术区
七九八
Part of A Better Guide to Běijīng’s coverage of Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond
This large, still partly light-industrial site in the northeast of the city, just off the Airport Expressway (Jiǔxiān Qiáo Lù exit) beyond the Fourth Ring Road, has become one of Běijīng’s top attractions. But if you’re hoping to be hip you’ve come to 798 too late. Even by 2008 one architect with a studio there was describing the place as an art theme park and ‘a fashionable spot with a fake art feel’. But if you want a concentration of art-related activity, from serious galleries to the last word in tat, several sizeable art bookshops with occasional bargains in books hard to obtain elsewhere, gift shops with arty trinkets and clothing, and stylish if sometimes pricey cafés and restaurants, 798 is the place to go. There’s something to amuse and stimulate just about anyone.
Galleries are typically open 10am–7pm, with many closed on Mondays. The earlier part of the week is quiet, but at weekends the site is crowded with Chinese visitors eyeing the expensive DSLR cameras dangling from each other’s necks. Nowhere is the widespread contempt for intellectual property rights in China more plainly visible, since photography is forbidden but visitors snap away constantly. It’s cheap to have copies of appealing artwork painted elsewhere. Small entrance fees to individual galleries (¥3–5) are intended to deter; foreigners are typically not charged.
At its height in 2008, Dà Shānzi 798 boasted as many as 130 galleries, but numbers dropped with the global economic contraction and a general belief that a correction in prices for Chinese art was long overdue. Some galleries became cafés or souvenir shops.
There are signboard maps at major junctions, and Timezone 8 (a publishing operation with a bar and restaurants at 798) produces an annually updated guidebook available at the Ullens Center gift shop and elsewhere around the site.
Many galleries stand large, colourful sculptures outside to attract attention, and at weekends during milder weather there’s sometimes performance art in the streets. Much very clearly targets foreign preconceptions or notions of charm: the glossy-lipped heroic style of 20th-century propaganda is applied to modern subjects, or more classical styles are applied to modern images or made to incorporate the logos of Western commerce. Mildly-coded hints of political rebellion are also popular, along with landscapes and street scenes with a built-in souvenir quality. The Terracotta Warriors or Máo Zédōng are depicted in the style of Warhol or even Mondriaan.
Wandering at random is a pleasure in itself, and some of the still-functioning light industry, spewing great columns of steam, is grimly photogenic in its own right. But a visit to some of the more reputable larger galleries is essential. 798 SPACE 时态空间 (www.798space.com, 11am–9pm) in Táocí Sān Jiē (陶瓷三街) was not the first arts business to move here but is certainly the most famous. Its bare Bauhaus-style concrete space, constructed under East German supervision and still containing vestiges of the original machinery, and its vast north-facing roof lights provide perfect illumination for both the art on the walls and the fading original Máo-era slogans alike: ‘Máo Zédōng thought is the modern summit of Marxist-Leninist doctrine and is the red sun in our hearts.’ Some of these have been painted with errors in the characters. There’s a well-stocked art bookshop at the rear, with many volumes of Chinese artists and catalogues of earlier exhibitions, as well as an Italian restaurant of sorts (10am–11pm, Tue–Sun).
Across the passage, the 798 Photo Gallery (www.798photogallery.cn) has excellent displays by Chinese photographers and publishes photography books from pocket to coffee table in size, many of which make excellent souvenirs (e.g. Lǐ Méi’s The Last Generation of Lily-Footed Women in China).
Right from the photo gallery, back down the passage, and right again, the Tokyo Gallery + BTAP (东京画廊, www.tokyo-gallery.com) was an early arrival in 2002, setting up in a former munitions factory, and introduces works in assorted media from a mixture of Japanese, Korean, and Chinese artists.
The UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (尤伦斯艺术中心, ucca.org.cn 10am–6.30pm, Tue–Sun), back up the passage to the other end and left in 798 Lù, is an 8000sqm complex with exhibition space (¥10), auditorium, shop filled with imported museum-y trinkets, restaurant, and gallery. It showcases some of the biggest names in contemporary Chinese art. There are also live bands, film seasons, and fashion shows here from time to time.
Also see New York’s Pace Gallery (www.pacebeijing.com, 10am–6pm, Tue–Sat) a little further north among the wave-like roofs of 798 Original Sq.
▶ Dà Shānzi Yìshù Qū, t 5978 9798, www.798art.org, 10am–5pm (but in reality much later), m Jiāngtái (Line 14). b to 王爷坟 or 大山子路口南: 401, 402, 405, 418, 445, 摆站445, 688, 909, 942支线, 946, 955, 955, 988南段, 991.
798 is warren of industrial buildings occupying several blocks east of Jiǔxiān Qiáo Lù (酒仙桥路), between Wánhóng Lù (万红路) to the south and Jiǔxiān Qiáo Běi Lù four blocks north, best entered from the west through entrance no. 4 along 798 Lù.
There are plenty of restaurants in 798, although you’ll have to leave to the main street to find either Chinese food or real prices. The Cǎochǎngdì Art District is a short cab-ride up the Airport Expressway to the junction with the Fifth Ring Road, or by b 402, 418, and 688 from Jiǔxiān Qiáo Lù. The nearby China Railway Museum and the China Film Museum can also be reached quickly.
Next in Běijīng Suburbs and Beyond: Cǎochǎngdì Art District
Previously: A Licence to Paint Money
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For discussion of China travel, see The Oriental-List.
