Thursday, April 09, 2009

Beijing Gallery District



We spent all afternoon at a very cool gallery district in Beijing. It's set in an antiquated industrial park, where shuttered heavy factories are getting converted into galleries, block by block. In addition to all manner of modern art, there was an italian jewelry exhibition, a concert space with a chinese rock band performing, a Lebron James-themed basketball court, clothing shops and cafes.



Like so many other places, there was a guard posted at the entrance.



I couldn't help but think of Matt and Neil when I saw this... there's an indoor driving range right at the entrance to the gallery district. When the couples trip to Beijing goes down, gallery day will be that much less painful.



Sculpture was everywhere.



One tiny chinese girl was particularly taken with this one.




More sculpture!



This was a very cool series of photographs titled "Men & Women" or something along those lines. I wish I could have captured all of these, but these are three of my favorites.



The graffiti outside the basketball court.



Ellen bought some very cool, very inexpensive clothes at this boutique.



And of course made friends with the owner, while wearing some of her new gear.



It was neat for us to happen upon this statue of the Mannequin Pis, the famous statue from Brussels. The first trip we took together, when I was ten or eleven, we went to Brussels, gorged ourselves on moules frites and laughed in front of this little peeing statue. Things haven't changed too much.



Seriously, look at that picture on the end. That piece of art was totally ridiculous.



Here, look at it again, without that handsome man in front of it.







There's tons more, but I am sick of uploading stuff to Blogger, so this will have to do for now.

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