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Below is the full text of this piece written for the art newspaper.

Beijing’s inaugural 798 Biennale, held in the sprawling 798 art district in China’s capital, saw a chaotic opening on August 15, and major works by Chinese artists were widely censored by authorities. The biennale was arranged with international contributions operating independently at numerous private galleries in the 798 complex, which were not affected by the censorship and avoided the operational issues that hampered the main exhibition hall.
Billed as first non-government biennale in China the event was hampered by a lack of funds, operational support, and some inexperience on the part of the organizers, who were predominantly Chinese art journalists.
In steaming temperatures of around 40 degrees hundreds stood out in the sun to listen to opening speeches by assembled dignitaries. The ceremony was briefly interrupted by a demonstration and water being thrown at the dais, though the demonstrations purpose was obscure, being performed by a group including a deaf mute in ancient Chinese costume, a man wheeling a cart of bed pans and another man wearing a metal mask with a bride. The Chief curator, Zhu Qi, said they were protesting their exclusion from the biennale.
Zhu Qi outlined the problems faced by the fledgling biennial: “Seven pieces regarding Sichuan were suddenly censored, as Sichuan province has now become a very sensitive topic.” These included works referring to nail houses – people who refuse to move out of houses slated to be demolished, the Three Gorges dam, and the earthquake of May 2008, involving works such as Zhang Lisheng’s Three Gorges migration videos, Wu Ping’s ‘home’ and Yuan Gong’s records of the disaster zone. “I think the Sichuan propaganda department called Chaoyang district government directly. The censorship was by Chaoyang district, not the central government. Some pieces were already shown in Sichuan,” Zhu said.
Zhu also said after the opening day a performance piece, Zhang Jianhua’s “Farmer’s Feast” was stopped on the second day as an elderly cadre was upset by characters in the work acting as prostitutes. The artist had spent as estimated RMB 100,000 (GBP 10,000) of his own money to finance a planned 7 performances. Other works were damaged or unable to function by the second day due to issues with electricity. Zhu blamed junior employees of the 7 Stars group, who are in charge of the 798 district “they just don’t care, they are a government work unit,” Zhu said.
Operating on a shoe string budget Zhu said money came “as a few 1000 RMB here, a few there. A lot of the artists financed themselves, and the international artists arranged their own money. Galleries offered their spaces as sponsorship.”
The temperatures in the 4600 m2 main exhibition hall were stifling, with a wide range of avant guarde works on show which escaped censorship, including photo work “ Falling flowers carried away by flowing water” by Sun Ping of the artist painting calligraphy with her vagina, visitors posed happily in front of a large neon sign saying “Arbeit Macht Frei” and a dangerous looking construction of a hut several meters up in the air where artist Xi Jianjun offered fortune teller services to those brave enough to venture up. A life sized replica of an underground church by Wang Zhong also escaped censor, though Zhu said he had asked the artist to obscure large character phrases painted outside the installation.
“If you came on the opening day you saw what we had intended to do. After that, and even if we try to repeat it in the future, it will never happen again as they are now aware of what we want to do, the upper level cadres will now pay attention. Actually I just wanted to open some discussions of some problems concerning society, and have a dialogue, I know it looks bad for China,” Zhu said.
Chief international curator Marc Hungerbuhler said: “The international contingent were self financed, with more than 20 countries providing support. I arranged the international section into galleries because of these kind of control issues, I have experienced this before, so there is better control that way. Our work of curating we did very well, but the main organization was out of our control, I think there was a lack of experience, as this is the first time for this event. There was no intention to be provocative, you cannot do that in these type of countries. The international curators have done a very impressive job.”
After the opening a select group of VIPs were whisked off for the opening reception at a remote location near the airport slated to be the future site of dedicated artists’ museums. With limited refreshments on offer VIPs reportedly had to decamp to a nearby kerbside food seller to purchase beer and “yang rou chuan,” Chinese shish kebabs.