Sketching at the UCCA
Another Beijing homeschooling mother and I have been trying to set regular Friday art activities. In addition to trying to revive our regular painting class at Beijing Color Studio, we've started to explore some of the gallery districts and museums of Beijing.
Recently we visited UCCA Gallery in the 798 District. For people who want that dusty, undiscovered, edgy feeling of the 798 of years past, the UCCA is definitely not that place (update 8:30 pm: to get that feel, one really has to check out Caochangdi, where Global Gal recently visited). It is a slick, gorgeous art space housed in a factory restored to fit the UCCA's gallery, shop, and cafe. I really like the UCCA, and the artists shown here are usually a little more established than in other galleries. There is also a small admission charge, 15 RMB (a few bucks), but the quality of the installations is worth it.
Among the exhibits we took in was Yang Shaobin's Blue Room. This is a site specific installation of monochromatic blue paintings. The side walls are lined with portraits, the end walls with multi-panel representations of a black hole and the eye of a storm. The inspiration for this installation is Climate Change, though except for the inclusion of the obvious portraits of world leaders among the other anonymous faces, any political meaning is not obvious. For the kids, it was a perfect spot to stop and sketch. The gallery was near-empty, so we were mostly undisturbed. This doesn't happen that often for us in China.
Brigid with blue crayon. She is so unpredictable. I was worried that she would be more interested in running around, but when she saw the other kids sitting with their notebooks and crayons, she reached into her own backback for her little Moleskine and crayon, plopped herself on the floor, and scribble.
Toddler, focused.
Another installation was titled '"Curated By Liu Wei"——Wang Yuyang & Hu Xiangqian: Organisms.' I'm not a fan of a curator's name in the title of the show, but there it is. One of the artists (Hu) is a video artist, with a survivalists theme to his works. The other (Wang), which interested us more, showed a collection of latex replicas of old, dirty, very-used appliances (like a fridge) and everyday machines (like a photocopier) and then pumped air into them to give the appearance of breathing. The effect was wicked cool. Myles, of course, was most drawn to these--sculptures with a mechanical side. It was fun to behold, and, unfortunately, closed that weekend so we can't return to visit.
In the area of the factory's smokestack is this room, the gallery's event space. Here there is an actual Ai Weiwei sculpture, this massive chandelier. Like his sunflowers seeds at the Tate, this bears an uncanny resemblance to something you see every day in China, but out-sized. Many furnishing and lighting stores here carry chandeliers that are of such outrageous proportions that I can't imagine how large a home has to be to fit one inside. This Ai sculpture captures that very well. This was also our first contact with an actual Ai Weiwei piece--our previous attempt to see his work in 798 had been thwarted because the gallery was closed for a private event.
Recently we visited UCCA Gallery in the 798 District. For people who want that dusty, undiscovered, edgy feeling of the 798 of years past, the UCCA is definitely not that place (update 8:30 pm: to get that feel, one really has to check out Caochangdi, where Global Gal recently visited). It is a slick, gorgeous art space housed in a factory restored to fit the UCCA's gallery, shop, and cafe. I really like the UCCA, and the artists shown here are usually a little more established than in other galleries. There is also a small admission charge, 15 RMB (a few bucks), but the quality of the installations is worth it.
Among the exhibits we took in was Yang Shaobin's Blue Room. This is a site specific installation of monochromatic blue paintings. The side walls are lined with portraits, the end walls with multi-panel representations of a black hole and the eye of a storm. The inspiration for this installation is Climate Change, though except for the inclusion of the obvious portraits of world leaders among the other anonymous faces, any political meaning is not obvious. For the kids, it was a perfect spot to stop and sketch. The gallery was near-empty, so we were mostly undisturbed. This doesn't happen that often for us in China.
Brigid with blue crayon. She is so unpredictable. I was worried that she would be more interested in running around, but when she saw the other kids sitting with their notebooks and crayons, she reached into her own backback for her little Moleskine and crayon, plopped herself on the floor, and scribble.
Toddler, focused.
Another installation was titled '"Curated By Liu Wei"——Wang Yuyang & Hu Xiangqian: Organisms.' I'm not a fan of a curator's name in the title of the show, but there it is. One of the artists (Hu) is a video artist, with a survivalists theme to his works. The other (Wang), which interested us more, showed a collection of latex replicas of old, dirty, very-used appliances (like a fridge) and everyday machines (like a photocopier) and then pumped air into them to give the appearance of breathing. The effect was wicked cool. Myles, of course, was most drawn to these--sculptures with a mechanical side. It was fun to behold, and, unfortunately, closed that weekend so we can't return to visit.
In the area of the factory's smokestack is this room, the gallery's event space. Here there is an actual Ai Weiwei sculpture, this massive chandelier. Like his sunflowers seeds at the Tate, this bears an uncanny resemblance to something you see every day in China, but out-sized. Many furnishing and lighting stores here carry chandeliers that are of such outrageous proportions that I can't imagine how large a home has to be to fit one inside. This Ai sculpture captures that very well. This was also our first contact with an actual Ai Weiwei piece--our previous attempt to see his work in 798 had been thwarted because the gallery was closed for a private event.
Comments
I'm sorry you got a nasty comment. Some people have way too much spare time. It is a day-wrecker for sure. I had some guy once come on here and rip me about some typos. Yeah. Though that is better than people who blog about you, and don't link to you, because they think you won't find out. I mean, seriously?
It's like Tina Fey said (and I'm paraphrasing), "If you ever start to feel too good about yourself, they have this thing called the Internet. And you can find a lot of people there who don't like you."