The Errant Æsthete

The contemporary art world is dazzled over Beijing’s newest artistic hub according to Bloomberg. While the advent of a market for Chinese contemporary art fostered an international audience in China, Beijing’s Dashanzi district has led the way in giving the works a wider public audience. That role is cemented with the opening of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art. Since its inauguration in 2002, when the first significant art spaces opened their doors, Dashanzi, known as “798” after a former electronics factory, has been the subject of endless rumors, most concerned with its demolition.

“Beijing’s newest artistic hub will be razed to the ground unless a determined campaign stops the bulldozers,” wrote Xiao Changyan in the China Daily in 2004. Dashanzi “faces demolition at the end of next year to make way for a high-tech electronics hub.” Three years on, 798 is going stronger than ever.

The opening of the Ullens Center, or UCCA, unfolded to lavish fanfare, though visitors to 798 in the past few weeks might well have passed the 6,000 square-meter factory conversion unaware of the transformation taking place within.

Concealed behind an external shield of existing cafes and small arts spots, the project was the soul of discretion before a blaze of banners was unfurled just prior to the opening.

Models of the new UCCA, designed by architect Jean-Michel Wilmotte in partnership with Shanghai-based Ma Qingyun, had been displayed in an adjacent space, now incorporated into the museum. They did not do justice to the scale of the completed interior, nor the fine balance between the retained “Bauhaus-style” elements and the stark, minimalist environment that has been introduced.

The interior is cavernous and, despite the coolness of its blinding white skin, is immediately a visitor-friendly place.

Collector Ullens

UCCA, the brainchild of Belgian collector Guy Ullens and his wife Myriam, is an ambitious project in every way, from scale to artistic vision to the role it seeks to play in China’s cultural development. Lending credence to the ambitions is the team Ullens brought in, drawn from major museums in China and abroad.

The determined tone is illustrated by the opening exhibition, “’85 New Wave: The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art,” a reference to the art movement that reacted against the suppression of the Cultural Revolution. The show is the vision of Shanghai- born Fei Dawei, whose association with the Ullens’ Collection dates back to the early 2000s, most recently as head of the Ullens Foundation, established in 2003.

From early 1989, Fei lived in Paris, where he introduced members of the Chinese avant-garde, such as Gu Dexin (whose work is prominently featured in the opening show) to the ground- breaking exhibition “Magiciens de la Terre,” held at the Centre Georges Pompidou in 1989.

Undiminished Power

In 1985, as a recent graduate of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, Fei was an active participant in both the ‘85 New Wave movement and the seminal “China/ Avant Garde” exhibition of 1989, which included a number of works currently on display at UCCA. This is the first showing of these works in China since then, and it is remarkable to discover how little they are diminished in power of expression.

Most of the selected works are of immeasurable significance to the subsequent evolution of art in China: the bedrock upon which present cultural attitudes rest. Here, we have a rare opportunity to see pieces such as Geng Jianyi’s “Second State,” Zhang Peili’s “X?” — bland depictions of surgical gloves — and examples of Wang Guangyi’s dour series’ “Frozen Northern Wastelands” and “Post-Classical.”

Also included are intricate and intimate works of “magical realism” from Zhang Xiaogang. Interestingly for the new generation of foreign visitors, it was the less politically charged works that proved most intriguing, in particular those by then abstract painters Yu Youhan, Li Shan, and Ding Yi.

`No Water’

Important experimental pieces include Gu Dexin’s 1980s studio and work created for Magiciens de la Terre, Wu Shanzhuan’s sublime “No Water Today” and examples of the collective enterprise of XinKeDu — the New Analysts’ Group comprising Gu Dexin, Wang Luyan and Chen Shaoping.

Representing the innovation of the Xiamen Dada group is Huang Yongping’s “The History of Chinese Painting and the History of Modern Western Art Washed in the Washing Machine for Two Minutes.”

The legendary status accrued to these works was largely due to the lack of public access to them. That they have been brought together affirms UCCA’s systematic approach to programming and content as well as the skills of the curator. The works are accompanied by extensive research that is also made available to the public.

Part of the UCCA mission is to “mix art up,” or hold exhibitions that balance Chinese and Western art in carefully considered combinations from Chinese and non-Chinese artists. The non-Chinese participant at the opening is U.S. artist Lawrence Weiner, in the form of a commissioned work for the second gallery.

Future projects include a commission for Rebecca Horn, one of the numerous artist-celebrities at the preview, and a major retrospective of work by Huang Yongping.

In 2005, 798 was described as “degenerating into an art- themed park instead of a real SOHO art centre.” The arrival of UCCA shows that the district of former industrial plants has been granted a fresh, new, and professional start.

“’85 New Wave — The Birth of Chinese Contemporary Art” runs through Feb. 17, 2008. Information: +86-10-64386675.