BEIJING (AFP) — The gallery Tamsin Roberts ran for more than two years in Beijing's famous 798 art district has been bulldozed to make way for a six-storey car park.
While the car park is ostensibly being built to cash in on the flood of visitors expected during the Olympics in August, Roberts says she believes it shows how 798 is changing from an edgy, creative space beloved by artists and small galleries into a tourist attraction.
"When I first came there were more artists than galleries. It felt underground, now it feels far less alternative," said the Briton, who was given a month's notice to vacate her Red T gallery despite having a lease until December.
"I am sure lots of people will love (the new 798), but it will become very expensive, more exclusive. They will shine it up and then reduce its audience," she told AFP.
"(The authorities) are beginning the implosion of what happens to the creative arts here."
The commercialisation of the area -- which is named after a former electronics factory, Factory 798, was divided up by artists into galleries and studios -- comes as Chinese paintings and sculptures are dominating art auctions across the world.
Last year, a painting by avant garde artist Yue Minjun based on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests fetched more than 2.9 million pounds (5.96 million US) at a Sotheby's sale in London, a record for contemporary Chinese art at auction.
Only five years ago, Yue's work was going for barely 10,000 dollars but the mark up is no longer unusual for Chinese contemporary works and has drawn investors as well as art lovers.
While the stratospheric prices are no doubt a delight for many artists and their representatives, leading artist and curator Ai Weiwei believes the money has had a detrimental effect.
"We are living in a state of the worst culture and the worst creation period, this is for sure," he said.
For the last decade or so, 798 was at the heart of the city's creative boom, as the decommissioned military factory's smoke stacks and workshops became a haven for artists desperate for the roomy, light spaces it provided for cheap rent.
Today it is a thriving hub of trendy cafes, glossy galleries and eye-popping prices for works by the Chinese artistic elite.
But the boom, which has been reflected in rising property values and rent increases, has squeezed out many artists and smaller galleries.
Meg Maggio, who has been working in China as a curator and art writer for 20 years, said she decided not to set up her Pekin Fine Arts gallery in 798 because of the rents and its changing face.
"It is starting to feel like a shopping mall when I get over there," said the American, who set up her gallery in the nearby Caochangdi village which has established itself up as another creative hub.
"It (Caochangdi) does not feel like a tourist destination, when more and more of 798 is looking like a retail outlet or a space for corporate functions," she said.
Recently, sportswear giant Nike converted one building into a temporary temple to basketball legend Michael Jordan, complete with memorabilia and huge screens flashing his greatest dunks, a long way from the semi-legal artists' studios that originally filled the area.
The scale of ambition has certainly shifted, with great swathes of the neighbourhood taken over by large-scale construction.
Just opposite the spot where Roberts's gallery was demolished giant girders form the outline of a new 15-million-dollar space financed by the Iberian Centre of Contemporary Art.
The centre is looking to replicate the success of the Ullens Centre for Contemporary Art, which has three huge exhibition spaces, a library, a shop and cafe in its 798 space.
Guy Ullens, the founder of the gallery, recognises that the huge success that 798 has enjoyed raises questions about the motivation of the artists, but insists it is up to galleries to protect the quality of the work they show.
"You have got now some people (artists) who find a gold mine and they want to keep turning the machine, there are obviously commercial artists and others who are not. Those who we are exhibiting are not so commercial," he said.
But despite the huge injections of foreign cash, Maggio believes that the glossiness actually shows the maturity of China's art market.
"It has gone from a local scene to a completely international scene. Beijing is very much like London, Los Angeles, Berlin, and 798 is a crucial part of that," she said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
