Out of the Galleries and Into the Streets

One night, coming home late, I saw a strange sight. In an illuminated shop window in a hutong near the Confucius Temple, I saw a ping-pong ball hanging in the air. Without visible means of support it hung, mysteriously, above a cardboard ping-pong table. As the days went by, the neighbors and I had time to get used to the ping-pong ball hanging there in a shopfront between the pancake maker and the greengrocer before it was revealed – this was the first exhibition by the Arrow Factory, a pioneering project to take art to the streets.

“The model in Beijing is that galleries are on the outskirts of the city,” says artist Rania Ho, one of the founders of the Arrow Factory. “People have to make a pilgrimage outside the Fourth Ring Road, even the Fifth Ring Road, to ‘visit the art.’ And we thought, why do galleries have to be so far away?”

So the Arrow Factory was born. Over 18 months they have pursued their eccentric course, animating their part of Beijing with a series of exhibitions, some by major artists, each creating a small world for a few months inside the gallery space, a space that never opens, that doesn’t try to sell any art, but instead simply tries to engage, stimulate or amuse its neighbors. “The pilgrimage is so separate from your life,” Ho says, “and this is the opposite extreme. The work is just there and you can live with it.”

The Arrow Factory remains an exceptional player in the Beijing art world, but the idea of putting art where the people are, rather than waiting for people to come to it, is growing.

In a city that likes to eat and drink, cafes, restaurants and bars are at the forefront. Café de la Poste has for a long time displayed the work of local photographers and it’s an accepted part of a bibulous night there that you spend some time critiquing the works on the walls.

Andéol de Sainte Foy is currently showing his photographs of Beijing and beyond at the Café. Depending on which table you choose, you can gaze on Beijingers bathed in the glow of lanterns at Spring Festival, or a group of Great Wall hikers laughingly losing their red flag to the wind, or marvel at a simple restaurant in Fujian where even the humblest implements are lit like a Dutch still life. Andéol was a longstanding customer when he plucked up courage to ask whether he might exhibit on the walls. “There’s nothing like this in the world –” he says (and given his day job is with Airbus, he’s seen a bit of that) “– where you are encouraged to show your work, put it on show for people to look at and yet there is no complicated financial arrangement.” If you ask at the bar, they will give you his contact number, but whether you buy is up to you and they take no cut of any sales.

At Café Zarah on Gulou Dongdajie, they also have developed a reputation, not just as a place to hang out, but for the fascinating photographs they put on their walls. Right now they are showing the work of Sean Gallagher (see "China's Growing Sands"), which records the desertification of China in some of its most beautiful and remote provinces. In previous months you could have taken your coffee with a slice of apple cake and photographs that took you by turns beneath the streets of Beijing, to the grasslands of Mongolia and on a trip through India.

Meanwhile, the mainstream galleries are seeing the sense of taking art to the people. Back in April, the UCCA showed the work of young photographer Liu Gang at Lan Club, an example followed promptly by ShanghART.

A series of leading galleries have also taken the opportunity to exhibit in the lobby of The Opposite House in Sanlitun. F2 Gallery, whose home address in Caochangdi puts it in the “pilgrimage” category, is presently showing the glittering porcelain and steel “insects” of young sculptor Feng Shu, positioned to catch your eye on your way to Mesh.

So take in some sculpture with your cocktails, or photography with your steak, and if you are in the mood for a small pilgrimage, turn into Jianchang Hutong off Guozijian Jie and wander down to the Arrow Factory one evening. Buy a chuan’r and a beer; pull up a stool and gaze a while. Or if you like, retrace your steps to the mouth of the hutong, to Café Confucius, the self-styled “Arts Haven,” and discuss what you’ve seen with the neighbors.

Exhibitions currently to be seen outside the galleries of Beijing include “Brothers not Comrades” at the Arrow Factory, 38 Jianchang Hutong; Andéol de Sainte Foy’s photographs at Café de la Poste, 58 Yonghegong Dajie; Sean Gallagher’s “China’s Growing Sands” at Café Zarah, 42 Gulou Dongdajie; Feng Shu’s sculptures at The Opposite House, 11 Sanlitun Nanlu; Liu Ruowang’s sculptures at 1949 – The Hidden City off Gongti Beilu, and “Poetical Appearance from Venezula” at Lan Club, Twin Towers, 12B Jianguomenwai