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“I just moved into the new studio. It is still a mess, but I feel happy,”Deke Erh said in his microblog on December 31, 2012, expressing bittersweet satisfaction at the end of a misfortunate year.
Two months earlier, the well-known Chinese photographer, also known as Er Dongqiang, was forced to move out of the Tianzifang Art Zone in Shanghai because he could no longer afford the rent.
Erh watched the former residential neighborhood evolve into an arts and crafts enclave, having located his studio there when the art zone was only just emerging from renovations in 2000. As tourism skyrocketed, so did the rent.
With his landlord unwilling to extend Erh’s lease last fall, the Tianzifang Management Office asked Erh to move out before December. Erh reckons the landlord might find a tenant willing to pay more.
“Rent prices at the Tianzifang Art Zone have surged over the past few years as it has become more commercialized,” Erh told Global Times, a Beijing-based newspaper.
Erh, 54, is renowned for his historic accounts of Shanghai’s architectural and cultural development throughout his threedecade career in photography, so the closure of the Deke Erh Art Center is particularly heart-breaking.
The same scene played out in Beijing. Skyrocketing rents in Beijing’s 798 Art District also forced out Xu Yong, a celebrated photographer of the city’s hutong alleyways.
Xu received his eviction notice last October. Unwilling to reveal the actual rent of his studio, 798 Space, Xu told Youth Daily that the property owner raised the rent by 250 percent in 2012. Employees of the property owner locked the doors on Xu’s studio on November 2, 2012, a day before it was scheduled to open its annual European Film Festival.
It took Xu a night of arguing and pleading with the property owner to get the doors opened for just one day.
The property owner, the Beijing Sevenstar Electronics Co. Ltd., would not allow Xu the last word. Iamdatong, a microblogger represent- ing Sevenstar, countered on November 3 that due to the financial crisis in 2008, Xu was only charged 16 months’ rent from 2008 to 2011.
Xu admitted he had benefited from preferential rental policies but said that the treatment had been earned. “My studio has contributed a lot to promoting arts and culture in the 798 Art District and has not earned much money,” Xu told Global Times.
After the acquisition of the 798 Space by Sevenstar, the studio was reopened with the name Bauhaus Space and designated for hosting cultural activities for six months while parties consider a new rental agreement. “I hope I can return and change it back to my 798 Space,” said Xu.
Despite support from netizens and media outlets, Xu and Erh’s departures are the latest in an exodus of high-profile artists from downtown enclaves that had been set aside for the creative industry. Many are heading toward lowrent suburbs.
In July 2012, the studio of the late oil painter Chen Yifei, another Tianzifang luminary, was summoned to court when it refused to move when its lease expired.
Paradise lost
Ma Liang, a painter who was forced out of Weihai Road 696, another art district in Shanghai, is working in an apartment he rented in suburban Songjiang District, though he would prefer to work in a downtown studio. “It’s hard for artists to afford a studio in downtown cultural and creative industrial parks. There’s no support from authorities,” Ma said.
But He Shouchang, a Shanghai official in charge of promoting cultural and creative industries, said that support is available for artists who find the right area for their studios. “Some creative industry parks are particularly for artists and offer incentives for settlement,” he said.
Despite support from the government, property prices have kept rising in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and local art districts are no exception.
Since 2010, about 30 artists have left the 798 Art District for the Songzhuang Art Zone in Beijing’s suburban Tongzhou District, due to rising rents. “The 798 Art District could not have become well-known without these artists,”said Hong Feng, Director of the Art Promotion Association of Songzhuang Art Zone. “Art is vivid only when artists stay. Sevenstar should raise the rent according to artists’ financial ability.”
Huang Rui, one of the first artists to have settled in 798 Art District and lend the area its famed reputation, left much earlier by comparison.
At the end of 2006, the property owner cut power to Huang’s studio, as he hadn’t paid rent for several months. Huang had enough in 2007 and went elsewhere.
“The art zone has become nothing but a market,” said Huang. Real estate prices had decimated the cultural nexus like a neutron bomb, eliminating artists but leaving the East German Bauhaus-style buildings still standing.
As the rents rise, only a few can afford to stay. “Business is business, nobody can help,”Huang said. “How to keep their studios operat- ing and make good money out of them are what artists should consider now.”
New destination
With thousands of artists flocking to the Songzhuang Art Zone, the relatively newer creative haven has also become a target of complaints about commercialization.
“I don’t think much of Songzhuang. It is too far away from downtown and I found out after moving there that some artists’ works become idle and less vivid. It is disadvantageous for artists,” said Li Xianteng, a Beijing art critic. After spending seven years in an art community near the Old Summer Palace in north Beijing, he moved to Songzhuang in 1995.
In November 2012, Wang Xiaojun and his wife moved out of Songzhuang after seven years’ stay. Professional artists as they are, they decided to go back to their hometown in Shandong Province for further development.
“Chances here are becoming lean, while in smaller cities the art market is taking its initial form. We believe we have more opportunities there,” said Wang, who added that the local government in his hometown is very supportive of young artists. “Although I stayed in Beijing in the past seven years, most of my artworks were sold in my hometown.”
Wang came to Songzhuang in 2005, when the place was about to reach its peak as a gathering place for modern artists. Even vegetable vendors in Songzhuang got into the painting business. But in 2007, most artists left as the market became oversaturated.
“The painting price of some modern artists rocketed to an astonishing number in those years and everybody wanted a piece of the ac- tion,” said artist Qi Wenzhang. “But the bubble soon burst and people had to move away as they couldn’t make money here any more.”
But the rent in Songzhuang continued to go up. Qi came to Songzhuang in 2003. At that time, the rent for a compound with a small house and yard was just 1,000 yuan ($161) per year. It soared to 9,500 yuan ($1,529) in 2008 and is now 20,000 yuan ($3,219).
According to Qi, there was just one restaurant in Songzhuang when he first arrived, but now myriad diners are filled with talk of money more than art. Local people are still not satisfied with the already handsome income they make renting property, yet there has been little improvement to the Sovietera facilities, where people still burn coal to keep warm in winter.
“In the end we will be forced to leave like those artists leaving the 798 Art District,” said artist Wang Liang. “The so-called Songzhuang spirit is just a stunt to make money.”
For artist Li Ping, shoddy facilities would not be a big deal if the village could provide an open platform for artists. “However, many activities are held here today, but they are all for small circles and it is almost impossible for an independent artist to get involved,” Li said. Even for the annual Songzhuang Art Festival, which is supposed to involve every artist in the village, Li said that he had never received any notice to participate.
In Li Ping’s eyes, Songzhuang now seems like a construction site. Many houses are either pulled down or under construction, but it has nothing to do with him.
Two months earlier, the well-known Chinese photographer, also known as Er Dongqiang, was forced to move out of the Tianzifang Art Zone in Shanghai because he could no longer afford the rent.
Erh watched the former residential neighborhood evolve into an arts and crafts enclave, having located his studio there when the art zone was only just emerging from renovations in 2000. As tourism skyrocketed, so did the rent.
With his landlord unwilling to extend Erh’s lease last fall, the Tianzifang Management Office asked Erh to move out before December. Erh reckons the landlord might find a tenant willing to pay more.
“Rent prices at the Tianzifang Art Zone have surged over the past few years as it has become more commercialized,” Erh told Global Times, a Beijing-based newspaper.
Erh, 54, is renowned for his historic accounts of Shanghai’s architectural and cultural development throughout his threedecade career in photography, so the closure of the Deke Erh Art Center is particularly heart-breaking.
The same scene played out in Beijing. Skyrocketing rents in Beijing’s 798 Art District also forced out Xu Yong, a celebrated photographer of the city’s hutong alleyways.
Xu received his eviction notice last October. Unwilling to reveal the actual rent of his studio, 798 Space, Xu told Youth Daily that the property owner raised the rent by 250 percent in 2012. Employees of the property owner locked the doors on Xu’s studio on November 2, 2012, a day before it was scheduled to open its annual European Film Festival.
It took Xu a night of arguing and pleading with the property owner to get the doors opened for just one day.
The property owner, the Beijing Sevenstar Electronics Co. Ltd., would not allow Xu the last word. Iamdatong, a microblogger represent- ing Sevenstar, countered on November 3 that due to the financial crisis in 2008, Xu was only charged 16 months’ rent from 2008 to 2011.
Xu admitted he had benefited from preferential rental policies but said that the treatment had been earned. “My studio has contributed a lot to promoting arts and culture in the 798 Art District and has not earned much money,” Xu told Global Times.
After the acquisition of the 798 Space by Sevenstar, the studio was reopened with the name Bauhaus Space and designated for hosting cultural activities for six months while parties consider a new rental agreement. “I hope I can return and change it back to my 798 Space,” said Xu.
Despite support from netizens and media outlets, Xu and Erh’s departures are the latest in an exodus of high-profile artists from downtown enclaves that had been set aside for the creative industry. Many are heading toward lowrent suburbs.
In July 2012, the studio of the late oil painter Chen Yifei, another Tianzifang luminary, was summoned to court when it refused to move when its lease expired.
Paradise lost
Ma Liang, a painter who was forced out of Weihai Road 696, another art district in Shanghai, is working in an apartment he rented in suburban Songjiang District, though he would prefer to work in a downtown studio. “It’s hard for artists to afford a studio in downtown cultural and creative industrial parks. There’s no support from authorities,” Ma said.
But He Shouchang, a Shanghai official in charge of promoting cultural and creative industries, said that support is available for artists who find the right area for their studios. “Some creative industry parks are particularly for artists and offer incentives for settlement,” he said.
Despite support from the government, property prices have kept rising in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, and local art districts are no exception.
Since 2010, about 30 artists have left the 798 Art District for the Songzhuang Art Zone in Beijing’s suburban Tongzhou District, due to rising rents. “The 798 Art District could not have become well-known without these artists,”said Hong Feng, Director of the Art Promotion Association of Songzhuang Art Zone. “Art is vivid only when artists stay. Sevenstar should raise the rent according to artists’ financial ability.”
Huang Rui, one of the first artists to have settled in 798 Art District and lend the area its famed reputation, left much earlier by comparison.
At the end of 2006, the property owner cut power to Huang’s studio, as he hadn’t paid rent for several months. Huang had enough in 2007 and went elsewhere.
“The art zone has become nothing but a market,” said Huang. Real estate prices had decimated the cultural nexus like a neutron bomb, eliminating artists but leaving the East German Bauhaus-style buildings still standing.
As the rents rise, only a few can afford to stay. “Business is business, nobody can help,”Huang said. “How to keep their studios operat- ing and make good money out of them are what artists should consider now.”
New destination
With thousands of artists flocking to the Songzhuang Art Zone, the relatively newer creative haven has also become a target of complaints about commercialization.
“I don’t think much of Songzhuang. It is too far away from downtown and I found out after moving there that some artists’ works become idle and less vivid. It is disadvantageous for artists,” said Li Xianteng, a Beijing art critic. After spending seven years in an art community near the Old Summer Palace in north Beijing, he moved to Songzhuang in 1995.
In November 2012, Wang Xiaojun and his wife moved out of Songzhuang after seven years’ stay. Professional artists as they are, they decided to go back to their hometown in Shandong Province for further development.
“Chances here are becoming lean, while in smaller cities the art market is taking its initial form. We believe we have more opportunities there,” said Wang, who added that the local government in his hometown is very supportive of young artists. “Although I stayed in Beijing in the past seven years, most of my artworks were sold in my hometown.”
Wang came to Songzhuang in 2005, when the place was about to reach its peak as a gathering place for modern artists. Even vegetable vendors in Songzhuang got into the painting business. But in 2007, most artists left as the market became oversaturated.
“The painting price of some modern artists rocketed to an astonishing number in those years and everybody wanted a piece of the ac- tion,” said artist Qi Wenzhang. “But the bubble soon burst and people had to move away as they couldn’t make money here any more.”
But the rent in Songzhuang continued to go up. Qi came to Songzhuang in 2003. At that time, the rent for a compound with a small house and yard was just 1,000 yuan ($161) per year. It soared to 9,500 yuan ($1,529) in 2008 and is now 20,000 yuan ($3,219).
According to Qi, there was just one restaurant in Songzhuang when he first arrived, but now myriad diners are filled with talk of money more than art. Local people are still not satisfied with the already handsome income they make renting property, yet there has been little improvement to the Sovietera facilities, where people still burn coal to keep warm in winter.
“In the end we will be forced to leave like those artists leaving the 798 Art District,” said artist Wang Liang. “The so-called Songzhuang spirit is just a stunt to make money.”
For artist Li Ping, shoddy facilities would not be a big deal if the village could provide an open platform for artists. “However, many activities are held here today, but they are all for small circles and it is almost impossible for an independent artist to get involved,” Li said. Even for the annual Songzhuang Art Festival, which is supposed to involve every artist in the village, Li said that he had never received any notice to participate.
In Li Ping’s eyes, Songzhuang now seems like a construction site. Many houses are either pulled down or under construction, but it has nothing to do with him.