The new art community

If you begin driving along the Jingtong expressay heading east from Dabeijiao, roughly twenty minutes later you will end up in Tongxian, a satellite town of metropolitan Beijing. Its output, until recently, was strictly limited to agriculture and industrial products and had nothing to do with art and culture. This all changed in 1995 when hundreds of young artists from all over the country moved in and sprawled out into the town and surrounding countryside. Tongxian is increasingly emerging as the biggest art community in China.
　　
The history of artists communities in Beijing is as short as Chinese history is long, though no less mythic. The artist village of Yuanmingyuan, the Old Summer Palace, began in the early '90's and still reigns in the imagination as the prototypical Beijing artists' village. Several years ago the "East Village"east of the Lufthansa Center also developed into an artists' village. These two areas emerged as the hot spots in the new Chinese art scene and captivated the interest and concern of many.

At the beginning of the 1990's, with the acceleration of the Chinese reform program and the diversification of the social structure, some enterprising young artists resigned their positions in different conventional art institutions and came to Beijing to seek more independent and freer career as professional artists. They gradually concentrated around Yuanmingyuan, in the northwest area of Beijing. Thanks to critic Li Xiantin's promotion and the booming art market in the south of Asia, Yuanmingyuan became the headquarters of the Political Pop and Cynicism Painting, the two genres of avant-garde Chinese arts at that time. With new artists constantly streaming in, this village became center of "self-in-exile"artists who lived a bohemian life style which included fighting, alcoholism, gambling and prostitution. The local police believed that this behavior constituted a serious social problem and forced them to move out.

In the meantime, about twenty artists moved to the "East Village" in Chaoyang District around 1994-5. In 1995, Zhang Huan performed his now-famous test of endurance by coating his naked body in honey and sitting in a bathroom while flies crawled over him. The local police deemed this performance and other similar ones "erotic-suspected" and these artists were also forced to move out. Photos of Zhang's performance and new live performance art were exhibited and performed at this summer's 'Inside/Out: New Art from China' exhibit organized by the Asia Society in New York and currently traveling to San Francisco and Tokyo. The globalization of new Chinese art in recent years has resulted in some mega-exhibitions like Inside/Out which have caused the commercial price of new Chinese art to soar. Many young artists are able to earn back their money and get rich quickly.

According to conservative statistics, there are at least 120 artists living in Tongxian, which makes it a more popular area than either of the preceding two villages. Young artists have flocked to this area because of its inexpensive real estate prices, convenient location serviced by close to 10 bus lines and relatively tranquil environment. Their economic situations and working conditions have improved over the years, thus reducing the social problems that existed in Yuanmingyuan. Many have bought big courtyard houses and have well-equipped studios and spacious living areas. The average 3-bedroom apartment rents for 800-1,000 RMB per month and a courtyard house can be bought for 20,000-30,000 RMB. They have settled into three main headquarters: Binhe residential area, Songzhuan village and Xiaopu village. However, Beijing proper is creeping up on Tongxian; the official name of Tongxian (Tong County) has recently been changed to Tongzhou Qu (Tong District) though it is still colloquially known as Tongxian.

Artists who live in Tongxian range from emerging artists to world-famous figures. They engage in a wide variety of art genres, including painting, sculpture, installation art, photography, performance, conceptual art, video-installation and film. Many participants of the "Corruptionist" exhibition were from Tongxian. On December 12 and 13, another large group exhibition was on view at a huge manufacturing complex within the Beijing Construction University on the edge of Tongxian. It was called "Counter-Perspective: The Environment and Us" and featured 25 works from 17 artists, including Wang Qiuren, Liu Jin and Zhou Ce.

Wang Jin, one of China's leading artists, moved to Binhe this summer. His concept-oriented Marry with a Mule performance piece found him dressed as a groom in a Western suit getting married to a mule with thick makeup and a Chinese-style trousseau standing in front of a tawdry dyed-pink backdrop. The absurd combination of the groom's severe expression and the innocent mule metaphorically symbolized the bizarred combination of tradition and modernity, a popular theme in new Chinese art. A photograph of this performance was exhibited at Inside/Out. Other famous Chinese artists living in Tongxian are Xu Yihui, Zhu Fandong, Fang Lijun, Liu Wei, Yue Minjun, Zhao Pandi, Yi Ling, Wang Qiang and Hu Xiangdong.

Three months ago, a joint show at the National Museum of Art called "New Community" highlighted eight mid-career painters from Baoding, Hebei. This project attracted much attention in Beijing because of the trenchant observations made about contemporary Chinese life. After the exhibition, Xu Xiaoyan, Liu Guohui, and Qi Menguang established their studios in Tongxian also.

In October, the first art gallery in Tongxian opened. The Frontyard Gallery is exclusively devoted to showing the work of young artists working in Tongxian. Located in a big apartment in the center of Tongxian, the gallery exhibits by appointment only. Call 8156-1472 to get to know one particular artist or to get a general survey of the Tongxian art community.