Shanghai Eye’s neighbour has made the local news, to be filed in the you learn something new everyday department. According to this the strangley named Club 508, used to be the house of Empire of the sun author J.G. Ballard. You can read all about it here, where Shanghaiist interviews Ballard fan Rick McGrath.
“McGrath took a last look down Xinhua Lu and recalled the famous scene from the book: the Japanese tanks rolling past the lane on their way in from the Hongqiao airfield.”
If he took a look now he probably also spotted a soon-to-open City Shopper, a Starbucks, a couple of bakeries and various other eateries. Truly we live in a new golden age.
In sort of related news he would have seen, if he walked a bit further ot the Pingwu Road, Fanyu Road intersection z58. Z58 is a new headquarters building designed for Chinese lighting specialists Zhongtai by acclaimed Japanese architect Kengo Kuma in the heart of Shangahi.
In other news, there is this video of some artists and directors getting busted…less said about that the better.
Eds note: 我的老天
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One of Beijing’s English language magazines has had a makeover, no longer ‘That’s Beijing Home’ its now called Urbane.
“China’s only English-language monthly magazine devoted to architecture, design, lifestyle, travel and real estate.”
Not that unlike… That’s Beijing…
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Its always the first go. Apparently confidence in the contemporary art market has dropped 40 percent over the past six months, according to a survey by ArtTactic, a London-based research company.TThe biannual survey, based on the responses of 155 buyers of contemporary art, mostly international private collectors, said the decline in confidence followed the credit crisis in the last quarter of 2007.The full survey, published on Jan. 23, follows a snap poll in August that showed contemporary art buyers were increasingly worried about the prospects for the economy, said ArtTactic. Read all about it here, or here.
Ah, but its not all doom and gloom, “There are so many collectors in the primary market now and they want to carry on buying,” especially works by younger artists that have relatively low prices, said the London-based contemporary art dealer Thomas Dane.
Art Tactic also put out a report that confidence in Indian art is up 12%.
This should sort out the men from the boys.
Eds note: does this mean Shanghai Eye’s studio rent will go down?
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Nasa claims to have seen something on Mars, judge for yourself…
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There has been a sudden rash of real estate articles out recently in the foreign press,some saying the price is going down,
some saying its going up.
It seems the confusion is also felt among foreign home buyers in China.
Quote: “Worried that real-estate speculation was leading to higher prices, China’s government rolled out regulations in July 2006 that greatly restrict foreigners’ ability to purchase homes. Under the rules, foreigners can’t buy a home until they have lived in the country for at least a year. And they are restricted to owning just one home at a time. The full-year requirement applies to all foreigners except Taiwan and Hong Kong residents who have a Chinese work visa.
But as with most laws in China, gray areas exist. Some foreigners have been approved to buy homes despite having traveled in and out of China during their first year. “The rules aren’t clear on how that one year is calculated,” says Kevin Tu, a Beijing-based agent who works with foreign buyers. Agents also say that foreigners who owned multiple homes before the new rules not only can keep them but may buy an additional property. Ms. Chen, the American in Shanghai, says she owned seven residential properties before the regulations changed and had no problem buying another one afterward.”
Perhaps soon we’ll see the reverse of this, with someone selling off the Yangpu bridge. Or surely someone would
be interested in the Bund tourist tunnel?
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Not a lot to report, Shanghai Eye has been in Beijing, so..we present some photos of Beijing and shanghai from the last few days.
In other news a certain famous brand, allegedly, so rumour, has it, have canceled their Olympic marketing campaign, because it clashed with a certain artists show going by the name ‘city of gold.’ Hmm.
Also, Danwei linked to an interesting piece by the Age on China’s ‘art godfather,’ Ai Weiwei.
An angry artist, as described by the paper as:
“The bearded artist sits on one of his antique Chinese chairs like a bohemian Buddha, his hands inside his sleeves in a pose that became a stereotype when China first entered the Western consciousness in the 19th century. But this is a practical measure — it is minus 6 degrees outside, a typical Beijing winter day, and inside it’s not much warmer.”
The full article is here.
 
 
 
 
 
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UK artist Banksy has had one of his pieces put up for auction- but as it was unsolicited graffiti he will receive none of the proceeds.
“The work appeared in September outside a post-production company in Portobello Road, west London.
Luti Fagbenle, who runs the firm, decided to put the wall on eBay and has so far received 67 bids.
The potential seller protected the investment against vandals by placing a Perspex sheet over it.
Banksy’s representative said that the wall painting was authentic but added that the artist would not comment on the sale.”
Read the news article in full here.
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Artists appalled in the UK
Controversy reigns in the UK, as the British Council is under assault from hundreds of well-known artists. What caused this unrest? It would seem some bright spark in the British Council’s hierarchy decided to delete their visual arts department. British Council staffers expressed surprise when artists got upset about it. Perhaps it will turn out the whole thing is some sort of performance art stunt?
Wall St. journal
Big name collectors, including China collector Uli Sigg gets profiled in the Wall Street Journal.
Quote: “Contemporary art is a very good way to access a culture, says Uli Sigg, whose unyielding discipline in studying China has resulted in a collection of roughly 1,600 pieces of contemporary Chinese art.”
Local gossip
Locally, media group Xinmin Wenhui are expanding their investment into the arts, rumour has it. A large artists and media group, with about 100 of China’s top artists co investing, is planned to be launched in pre-Olympics Beijing. Exactly what this group is going to do remains unclear.
In other news, Shanghai’s new arts TV channel, which was launched the same time as the English channel, is causing some problems for pop music promoters. The arts channel replaced the music channel- the main outlet for pop promoters videos and such stuff.
According to insiders a certain leader’s wife, a famous folk singer (know as ‘Ming ge,’ a kind of nationalistic peasant singing, well known in socialist countries), was not impressed and brought about the change. True to form the new channel does now feature folk songs. But where are the pop promoters going to promote their stuff? Despite expectations that they may give up and give us all a rest it would seem they will likely turn to online ventures to promote pop music, thusly quickening the departure of the yoof from TV and towards the Internet.
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