Demolition man

I had to stop my bike by the side of the road to watch some demolition in progress today. A big Tonka truck with a pneumatic drill arm had a disturbingly human way of chipping into a supporting wall. I watched and watched the roof bend - a huge solid slab of cement - it never cracked just came quietly to its knees. An overseer, investor, or real estate agent (I couldn't tell which) started talking at me in a very animated voice, smiling all the while... I think he was telling me to piss off and stop gawking at his new apartment building. From the team of workers he employed, only 2 were actually working on demolition. One was collecting bricks (they save them here); one was chipping mortar from the old bricks; one was collecting steel reinforcing bars (for smelting back into the next building?); another picking through the debris for signs of life and generally cool stuff. It certainly didn't look as though the residents got their things out of there in time.

Beijing Paranoid City

Why not build an underground city big enough to house 300,000 of Beijing's handpicked elite? I mean, it's only as long as the Great Wall and was, of course, dug by hand. I fell in love with the rows of water-soaked propagandaist framed illustrations - good on their own but so much better with an au naturale Gaussian blur.

Taiwan-a-go-go

Saw an amazing exhibition of work from Taipei, covering the last 100 years or so. I was quite surprised at how contemporary and bold the work is - everything from painting through to performance and installation work was bloody amazing. No photos allowed unfortunately, but I've tracked down a few of the artists on Google (in between being intermittently shut down by the Famous 4 (there are apparently only 4 servers going into/out of China, so monitoring can take place.

So before I forget - the artists I'm interested in finding out more about: Tsai-Tung Cheng (90's painter); Yung-Tsun Chang (80's mixed media + installation); Ming-Sheng Lee (90's installation + performance); Der-Cheng Lian (90's painter); Goang-Ming Yuan (90's video artist); Fu-Sheng Ku (60's action painter); Tehching Hsieh (70's + 80's performance - the 1 year guy).

Tsai-Tung Cheng.

Ming-Sheng Lee (I think this is his??)

Tehching Hsieh - this guy has undertaken a bunch of 'projects', all for 1 year duration. For example, he spent 1 year outdoors (no shelter, only a sleeping bag), 1 year locked in a cell (no TV, radio etc only food), 1 year tethered to someone he couldn't touch, and 1 year punching a time card every hour. Full on.

Goang-Ming Yuan (projections onto objects, which are truly beautiful).

Random weekly collection Vol.1

Spent the last few days at art openings, meeting people and eating and drinking local. Oh, and we've decided to adopt...

Getting down at Kai Bar.

A great opening by Gao Xiaowu and "Tamen" collective.

Someone makes cigarettes with hearts inside the filters. Genki-des!

I thought this was more poetic than it was - aapparently calligraphy artists practice in local parks with water on the grey stone. Beautiful to watch, even if it isn't politically motivated.

One of the last remaining bits of the walls that once surrounded Beijing.

More plastic fantastic. Speaking of plastic, I saw a nose and boob job clinic called 'Plastic Aesthetic Surgery Centre'. It was right next to Yuppy Disco.

TI haven't worked out exactly what these are yet, but they seem to appear outside certain types of official areas. They seem to list staff employed there, and this one was at a toll booth.

Ikea is really scary in China - the food hall seats about a thousand people, who don't even like pickled herring.

Temple office

Steve is moving his Beijing office to an old temple complex near the Drum + Bell Towers. Some of the detailing is amazing, and it will be an impressive place to work when it's ready later next week.

Hutong

Steve was living in a hutong just like these until a few weeks ago. I may spend some time there before his lease runs out, just to soak up the communal toilets, hubbub and sound of things happening only a few feet away.

They have the most amazing 'CONTACT' here - if only I had this for my schoolbooks in Year 4.

The communal public gym facilities are outstanding. Old people use them at sunrise and sunset, which is perhaps the reason why so many of them are in good shape as they approach their centenary. Who do they get a letter from, I wonder?

This car was wedged between 2 huntong (alleyways) that could never fit something as big as this. So my guess is it's been here for about 30 years untouched.

Most local shops have little red phones for making local calls - phones (as well as your own toilet) are still an unusual sight in hutong - but these orqange public phones are everywhere too. Turn them upside down and they'd make pretty good 70's loveseats.

The view from a local bar on top of a building shows you just how much construction is going on day and night around us.

Huh? (weird and wonderful)

They do such a good job copying the branding, tailoring details and packaging - you'd think they'd extend their eye for detail to the tagline. I mean, I don't even know what they were trying to say here!

I'm already disturbed by the abundance of grass you can't walk on. That's right guys, it's holding the desert back...

I think I may add to this collection over time. But first up, how inventive can a garbage can be?

C'mon guys, join up. You get funky outfits and get to live in a big city (if 6 million people just isn't enough).

How cool is this? Spot the hummingbird - I didn't know they made them this small!

Anyone know what this is supposed to be for? It's not a chair... not a potplant holder... and it's conventiently positioned outside a tollbooth.