Perpetual Disappearance

Since the closing of the Yuanmingyuan art village in the mid-1990s, a quite basic discourse has haunted the appearance and disappearance of art villages in Beijing: they are zones of freedom and creativity, usually located on the outskirts of the city, and always under the threat of demolition by an authoritarian state that cannot and will not accept artistic voices of discontent. This discourse of appearance and subsequent disappearance resurfaced in 2010 when the authorities announced the planned destruction of the Caochangdi art village, the village with Ai Weiwei as its unofficial yet highly prolific mayor. Huang Rui, artist and one of the founders of art district 798 in Beijing, wrote a piece titled ‘A City that Abandoned Artists’, which was posted on an e-mail list of which the accompanying text claims that ‘the destruction of the artists villages continues’ in China (MCLC list, 1 May 2010).

Somehow, this alleged cyclic appearance and disappearance of art districts in Beijing resonates well with a number of basic assumptions about art as a potentially subversive cultural form and the Chinese nation-state as an authoritarian state that does not and cannot allow such forms to proliferate freely. Such narratives all too easily ignore changes that have taken place over the past decade in urban planning in China, as well as in its art world. Driven by a desire to become a global player, the Chinese state has gradually formulated policies that are directed towards the strengthening of its creative industries, so as to be able to move from a ‘made in China’ image towards a ‘created in China’ image (Keane 2007). Apparently the work of Richard Florida has globalised even into the premises of Zhongnanhai. This turn towards the creative industries took place around 2004-2008, the same time that the value of the work of Chinese artists skyrocketed on the global art market.