moganshan

today our director michelle organized a little excursion over to moganshan lu, shanghai's central art district (similar to 798 in beijing, but not quite as large or famous). although i am always suspicious of contemporary art, i looked forward to doing something engaging but relaxing this afternoon before we start another week.

i was pleasantly surprised by how much i enjoyed moganshan, or "M50." it's just an series of alleyways with studios on all levels of industrial-style buildings. many of the artists live in their studios and are present/working as you visit. all the work is interesting... some of it makes subtle political commentary, some is just done in observation of modern china, some makes no sense at all, but everything (from my perspective) was very good. i also liked seeing chinese people featured in portraits and asian motifs in sculpture, because those things just aren't as common in american museums or galleries.

the coolest part of moganshan is how friendly the artists and their assistants are. even though i have studied art history, i always feel intimidated by the kanbuqi 看不起, or looking down on others, that usually accompanies modern art. yet at moganshan, artists asked me where i was from, whether or not i liked their work, which works were more interesting than others, etc. they wanted to exchange business cards and explain their artistic methods... some of which were hard to follow in chinese but i was nevertheless gratified that they wanted to share with me! here i am with one of moganshan's most famous artists, xu weiqiang, known in shanghai for his deconstuctionism. in another studio, an artist's assistant poured out his heart to me about how he had been rejected from 3 different finance grad programs and just wanted to become a painter!

so that was moganshan. a lovely way to end the weekend. this week we take our exit exam (an ungraded test that is meant to show our progress since we took the placement exam in june). can't think of anything else interesting coming up, but if i do you will be the first to know as always.