4A Beijing Residency
I woke up at 630am and made myself a coffee before trotting out for a run. I took a different route today passing through the cornfields along a few unsealed tracks that seem to be used mostly by electric motorbikes and pedestrians. I had breakfast and chatted to Romaine for a bit, she’s a super interesting woman who has led an amazing life. We all had work to catch up on so we dispersed around the building buried in our laptops, I had to do some plan drawings and write up a bit of an explanation for a proposed work coming up. After lunch we all jumped in the car and headed into Beijing, to the 798 District for an opening called Punch, punch, punch; Enduring Magnetism with Huang Rui, Gao Brothers and Zhang Dali, curated by Du Xiyun. Before the opening we went to one of the Gao brothers studios, they make some amazing, deeply critical political work. It’s surprising that they’re able to make fun of Mao in the way they do and it was kind of disturbing that their sculptor was jailed for crafting the work. The show itself had it’s great points but we were ready to have a look around the district. On the way out we couldn’t help discussing the boys club that seems to operate here, just like anywhere else in the world. There seems to be a real sense of adulation for the masters of art in a very hierarchical way. I suppose it’s a bit of a generational thing too, everything has happened so quickly over the past 30 years. It would be great to see some women held in the same esteem but I’m very aware that I’ve seen hardly anything yet so I’ll shut up now. On the way back we stopped at Black Bridge and Eugenia checked out a neon manufacturer. It’s crazy to see how small some of the manufacturers are who create massive signage for the worlds biggest companies. We got fairly lost looking for the highway again but we finally landed back in Huairou in time for dinner. Veronica was back, we don’t want her to go but she’s got a two month residency in Korea, she has been our saviour in China! After dinner everyone disappeared into the cinema to watch a movie, I did a tiny bit more work and read for a while before going to sleep.