Canton has can-do: Vibrant culture and shopping found in today's Guangzhou
0 
|
|
|
Shangxia Jiu Lu aka "Up-Down" 9 Road. Photo: Chen Jieying |
In some cases, these venues offer much more than music. Ping Pong, for example, tucked discreetly off a side-street near the Xinghai Conservatory, is a charming bar in its own right, and also known for its contemporary art life. It stages all sorts of exhibitions and performances, and last year launched the Ping Pong China-Europe Centre for Performance Art, which is based at the 1850 Creative Zone down in Fangcun, itself one of a number of new spaces for the arts being carved out of Guangzhou's post-industrial hinterland.
One of the prototypes for this mode of creative rebirth is Loft 345. Evolving out of an even more rough-and-ready space called Park 19, the Loft has it all: cheap booze, dodgy toilets, a cluster of artists-in-residence, and a constant trickle of curious visitors, who venture into the interior of the otherwise-nondescript building it inhabits in search of something a bit different.
The Loft was one of the first of its kind in Guangzhou, but the idea of turning former factories into creative spaces has reached a climax of sorts at Redtory. Originally a canning factory near the Pearl River in Yuancun, Redtory is now an art district, taking Beijing's 798 as its template and carefully reproducing what every edgy art zone in contemporary China needs. Obscure location?
Check. Disused industrial buildings reincarnated as cavernous galleries? Check. Assorted socialist realist sculptures? Check. Galleries with names like "Iron Curtain," or simply "916"? Once again, check.
But however consciously it has mimicked 798 – or what 798 has become – Redtory still has some charm of its own. For a former industrial area, it's surprisingly green in places, and has the kind of chilled-out atmosphere not always easy to come by in crowded Guangzhou. It also attracts a lively mix, from footballers and fencers who come to take advantage of its sports facilities, to the camera-toting couples and families who photograph each other draped against an "arty" backdrop. Most encouragingly, early film screenings, events and exhibitions suggest that Redtory has the potential to become something very interesting in future.
And if this idea of the arts doesn't grab you, it doesn't matter. Today's Guangzhou has plenty of alternatives, be it the canal-crossed, quintessentially Cantonese artists' colony of Xiaozhou Village, or internationally recognized institutions like the Guangdong Museum of Art and Guangdong Modern Dance Company. But more intriguing – and perhaps more truly representative of Guangzhou – are smaller, more independent entities like Vitamin Creative Space and the Libreria Borges Institute for Contemporary Art. Whether it's hosting a mini film festival or supporting Chinese translations of French philosophy, both have been doing their own thing for years. The wider art-world may have started to pay attention to what's been going on in the city, but for many Guangzhou-based artists it makes little difference – they'll keep on creating, whether anyone else is fortunate enough to notice or not.
Go to Forum >>0 Comments