Today the opening at 3pm! And this morning at 5am the rain could be heard loud and clear on the roof and didn’t stop for hours. This doesn’t ease the nerves because rain usually isn’t much beneficial to a successful opening. But we had some luck, about one o’clock the sky became a bit clearer, the rain stopped and even the preparations for the barbecue in the garden of the gallery could start. So it became a lively happening with a lot of visitors. Among them also a number of foreigners, even some Dutchmen, and of course several curious Chinese artists. Let the pictures speak for themselves!

So many things are happening these days that it’s better just to pick out one or two items to write about. Otherwise all these stories would become much too long.
Today it will be just one item, Brian Wallace. Who the hell is Brian Wallace you’ll ask because the name is not really a Chinese one. Well, that’s right, he’s from Australia. But he is an icon in the booming Chinese art world and also the owner of one of the most beautiful art galleries in town. This of course means that there is a story to tell.

In 1984 Brian arrived in China as a backpacker. In that time there was no modern art scene in the country. Only the traditional Chinese art was promoted and modern artists had difficult times. When Brian came back in 1986 he opened a gallery in Beijing to give modern Chinese art a podium because he thought he could be of some help for the artists. How he managed to organise one of the best spaces I don’t know yet but when I see him again I intend to ask him about that. Till now I met him twice, the first time at an exhibition Friday last week, the second time today in his own red Gate Gallery during an opening (have a look at the first picture) and I don’t mind if there will be a third time. He really is a nice man, knows of course a lot about the intriguing, booming Chinese art world of today and may be he would like to tell me more about that. It’s probably not exaggerated when I say that nearly all those world known modern Chinese artists started in his Red Gate Gallery.

The gallery can indeed been found in the Red Gate. Of the walls of the old city only a few rebuilded parts have remained together with a couple of the huge, now also renovated entry towers in this wall. Two floors in one of those towers take in Brian’s gallery (see one of the photos).
The exhibition itself, of a certain Lu Peng, was also wonderful. This guy, completely unknown to me, showed a tremendous skill in especially his work on paper. Not only was it modern, it was also really China. Very impressive!

The banners were going to be hanged! How would this lool like? Would the image in my head fit to reality? Would it all be in
proportion in this 7 meters high space? Well, let the pictures tell the story!

Yesterday I finished with a remark about the fact that I couldn’t enter my own weblog here in Beijing. This got an extra confirmation when yesterday evening I visited a Chinese artist: here the same problem popped up. Without many words our glances at each other meant the same. The Olympics and also …. But at least I still can send my texts and photos.

This morning I had the appointment for the next session with my ladies group. This showed up to be in the Academy for Fashion in Beijing. Not that this was known to us but our driver, the one we ordered for already several times, was given this address. Well, after some time you get accustomed to this kind of surprises. Although it’s called the Academy for Fashion we learned that they also have disciplines in ornaments, industrial design and painting because Zhanhe, one of our group, is teacher here and gave us a tour in the afternoon.
But first we had our session which meant concentrated working. The group counted five women again like last Sunday but there were two new faces in it because a few others probably had other things to do. In consultation we decided that we all could work free on the paper I had brought with me. It’s interesting to notice that now we are getting to know each other better a few of the women feel more free to use their very basic English. The whole ambience was really nice with Chinese titter and tatter and a lot of giggling. They all worked in different styles, from pure abstract to realistic figurative. How I will let this fit in the exhibition I don’t know yet. But that’s my problem, not theirs.

We ended this morning session with a real nice lunch offered to all of us by Zhanhe in the special restaurant of the academy. This was appreciated of course very much. That on our way to this restaurant we had a look into the two huge lunch spaces that are available for the 2000 students here made even more lovely! Isn’t this one of the reasons why we are here? As a normal tourist you will never have part in this kind of things. I more and more realise for myself that these experiences are really unique.
It became even more fun when we got the tour I mentioned above. Old memories came up when we entered the classroom where the students of Zhanhe were working. But before we were allowed to enter the nude model they were drawing had of course to vanish behind some big paintings. From time to time only a curious head was sometimes visible. The students liked our visit very much and became even more enthusiast when I was allowed to make remarks about their work which Zhanhe tried to translate as good as possible. A lot of photos were taken of me and them like in the official stuff with the most important person in the middle. Because all of them of course had flashy mobile phones with the possibility to make photos. In comparison to theirs mines belongs in the museum as Middle Age stuff. They all also were wearing typical Western clothes, T-shirt and jeans. If there hadn’t been Chinese bodies in it with Chinese heads on top talking Chinese this meeting also could have taken place somewhere in the Western world. But are a lot of the clothes we wear not ‘made in China’!

This morning the sunshine at six o’clock was already so bright that I couldn’t stay in bed any longer. My painter genes were itching too much, so I went downstairs to the gallery at 6.30am to work on some of the banners. Two of them were really okay to be painted on at the white backsides in combination with the images on the frontside. For this I could use the acrylic paint and the Chinese ink I have bought here. Also as a preparation for the session tomorrow with the ladies group I started to make a self-portrait on the paper I had bought yesterday. Now at the end of the afternoon I feel very tired en empty. All my energy has been soaked up by this paper, the ink and the paint.
Luckily the men are taking care of the food supply. May be I have to explain why I use the plural form here for the opposite sex. In a second big expo space here in the gallery another artist, Hillary Pollock from Australia, is working. She also took her partner with her. And he, Graham, and my partner Harm have the same background: schoolteachers. Also they are both retired now. This of course gives a jointly feeling, just like Hillary and I have because of the art. Since we arrived we therefore did already together a lot of things I described before.

So the two men are going to hunt for food in the nearby old fashioned hutong while the ladies are at work. In the tangle of narrow streets and small houses you still have this feeling of the old China out of the history book. Well, there are a few things different now! What to think of all those new big cars driving there? I really would think it over about several times before I would decide to buy one of those. And what to think about the lamp-posts working on sun cells? In time I will show some pictures of hutongs like this.
So the men buy the food and come in then to tell in a triumphant way that they just bought eight pieces of bread filled with really lovely stuff for about 40 eurocents! And coming with that were of course, Graham is from Australia, a couple of cold beers from the supermarket for the same price.

Tonight we’ll probably go to our local Chinese family restaurant to fill our stomachs with their delicious Chinese food. We really have to think about it that we won’t come back like those small porcelain Chinese statues of laughing Chinese men with big Chinese bellies.

By the way, spoken about little Chinese men! There is something awkward going on with this blog. It’s no problem to send my messages and photos to be published on my website. But when I try to reach the blog on the website here in China this particular page is blocked. It says that the proxyserver, or something technical like that, cannot be reached. But from the Netherlands I know they don’t have such problems and I suppose that in other countries the weblog can also be read normally. I also tried to reach the blog in other ways but without any success. So what’s going on?