China’s relentless economic development is driving culture out of its capital, artists have warned, saying it is increasingly hard to find a space to work within Beijing.
The country’s contemporary art scene is one of China’s biggest cultural successes, generating huge interest overseas, yet artists say their studios are targets for demolition.
In the best-known of Beijing’s art districts, the 798 factory complex, studios have been replaced by commercial galleries, large institutions, shops and cafes in the last decade as the art scene has prospered and rents have soared.
This week a group of artists said they were beaten with bricks and batons by thugs trying to evict them from their studios. More than a dozen of them mounted an unusual public protest in the heart of the capital on Monday against the demolition of art zones and the overnight attacks upon them.
Police questioned some of the artists about the demonstration on Tuesday, having said they wanted to speak to them about the assaults, one said.
The demolitions in Chaoyang district are only the latest of many. One person whose studio is threatened has been evicted four times already.
The artists say that some of them signed contracts for periods of up to 30 years and had spent a lot on improving the studios, but had been in the Zhengyang and 008 zones for a matter of months before their landlords said the developers were moving in.
“[People] assumed we would leave like cowards. They didn’t expect us to resist,” said one of the artists, Wu Yuren (吳玉仁).
The group said several of them had stayed at the sites on Sunday night because of concerns that people would try to demolish them overnight.
At 2am, about 100 men wearing black coats and white masks and armed with wooden and iron bars descended on the Zhengyang art zone, they said.
With his head wrapped in a blood-spotted bandage, Liu Yi (劉懿) described how a man grabbed his mobile phone as he rang the police.
“When I tried to get it back, he got four or five people with sticks and iron bars to beat me. I fell down and he got other guys to watch over me so I couldn’t get away,” Liu said.
Sun Yuan (孫原), whose studio in another art zone is also threatened with destruction, met the gang as he went to help his friends.
“They had knives and made four of us squat down with our hands behind our heads. If anyone tried to stand up or put their hands in their pockets, they beat us with bricks,” Sun said. “Later, they brought in a Japanese artist. He had blood covering his face. We told them he was a foreigner, but they said he didn’t look like it [and] when he didn’t understand them they kept beating him.”
Their captors fled when police arrived. By then bulldozers had already damaged some of the properties.
The attacks prompted about a dozen artists to march along Chang’an avenue in the afternoon, aiming to protest in Tiananmen Square. Police dispersed them a little more than a kilometer away and confiscated their banners.
The artists think they have almost no hope of reversing the decision, but feel they have had to highlight the problem.
“Of course we are worried. If the government’s present plans [continue], there will be no art zones left inside the city,” said Liu, adding that several other art districts also faced demolition.
“For artists, it is very hard to believe the next place they rent will be safe,” Sun said. “We all believe that as an international city [Beijing’s] development cannot be restricted to the economy. Culture and the arts are vital parts of its identity.”
Police in Chaoyang referred all queries to the district government, where phones rang unanswered. Calls to the company said to be developing Zhengyang also went unanswered.
State-owned English-language newspaper the Global Times reported that the head of Chaoyang district had vowed to oversee an investigation and ordered local leaders to safeguard the artists.
A local township official promised the police would find out who was responsible, adding: “I can assure you, the township government had nothing to do with the incident.”
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