The evolving canvas of Caochangdi

By Steve Hubrecht (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-09-03 09:23

An urban village on the outskirts of Beijing is emerging as one of the nation's artistic hotbeds.

Less then a decade ago, Caochangdi had virtually no arts presence but now 20 galleries and another 20 cultural enterprises, including arts organizations, studios, museums and art schools, operate within or near the village. And the galleries are top-notch.

Art Basel, among the world's most prominent contemporary art exhibitions, selects 200 to 300 galleries from around the globe to participate in its main fair. This year, at the 40th Art Basel, only four Chinese galleries made the cut, three of them from Caochangdi - Boers-Li Gallery, ShanghART and Galerie Urs Meile. The fourth Chinese gallery chosen was Long March Space from 798 Art Zone.

"There's quite a bit of concentration of people in the creative industries, from architecture, modern dance, documentary filmmaking and art galleries to artist studio spaces, antique dealers and, of course, the National Film Museum," says Meg Maggio, director of Caochangdi's Pekin Fine Arts gallery.

Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray, authors of Caochangdi, Beijing, Inside Out, list 46 arts and cultural enterprises around the village.

The evolving canvas of Caochangdi

Artist Ai Weiwei has turned Caochangdi into one of China's artistic hotbeds.

Ai Weiwei, the first prominent artist to move to the village, was a catalyst in turning the area into an arts haven, says Mangurian and Ray, who also operate BASE (Beijing Architecture Studio Enterprise), an experimental architecture center in Caochangdi.

Ai built his first studio in the village - located near the Fifth Ring Road, 20km north of the city center - in 1999, attracted by the space needed for contemporary art and the relatively affordable rent in such an outlying area. Ai has since designed or built many of other galleries and studios in the area.

Maggio sees the village's growth as part of a larger trend of artists moving to the northeastern part of Beijing, spurred by the Central Academy of Fine Arts' (CAFA) relocation from the downtown Wangfujing area to the Wangjing area.

The village was a grazing land centuries ago, then an imperial hunting ground and later a royal graveyard complete with extensive, reputedly beautiful gardens.

In the 1960s the imperial gardens and the villagers who tended them were converted into an agricultural commune during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76).

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