Siri Hermansen at China Platform, Caochangdi
Cathy, Garry, Jake and I went over to Siri’s today. Siri [Siri Hermansen] is a Norwegian artist and is the current resident with China Platform. Xian Lei introduced us a few weeks ago, and we all get on well. Siri said she would show us around the Caochangdi area, as it can be very difficult to find the art galleries around there. She showed us Three Shadows Photography Centre [designed by Ai Wei Wei] which I had come across previously. Also Gallery Urs Meile which is one of the movers and shakers in Beijing and represents some major Chinese artists [no current exhibition unfortunately]. This gallery was also designed by Ai Wei Wei. Siri then took us to Universal Studios Beijing, which we would never have found ourselves and the show was Qiu Anxiong’s ‘Staring into Amnesia’. This was a very interesting work that showed spliced Chinese documentary and film with sound through the windows of an old [50s?] train carriage.
All these contemporary galleries, cavernous and impressive, suddenly appear out of a dustbowl of unsealed roads, digging and building work. Caochangdi is a small, poor village in NE Beijing yet is in the midst of huge change as the art scene moves in in a serious way. This of course will change the dynamic of the area, and Caochangdi will start to become highly desirable.
