For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been walking/biking/skidaddling by the corner of Nanjing Rd and Shaanxi Rd wondering like a little monkey just what the hell was going on inside a giant box that was sitting there. I wonder no longer, for they have revealed the contents. The contents of the box being…A BAG!

This isn’t just any ordinary bag however, it’s a giant handbag crafted out of fluorescent lights encased in a glass box coated with mirrors entitled Sac par Lady Dior. At first, your eyes can’t help but be drawn towards the light, as if you were heading towards that magical place in the sky. Then your eyes become fixated on it and you begin to stare, your corneas fry just like an insect flying into one of those buzzing lights you can always find in restaurant kitchens.

I don’t care too much for name brand stuff. Actually I do only in so far that one day I’d like it all to be wiped from the collective human consciousness with a J-Cloth™ and some Windex™. I do give Dior and Li Songsong (李松松) snaps here for coming up with something puts even a marijuana grow-op’s hydro bills to shame. Not to mention walking away from this work, the only thing on your mind is GIANT GLOWING DIOR HANDBANG. So it’s definitely effective to say the least.

It does raise some interesting questions about advertising and art, and where the line is drawn. However photography is more my thing, so I’ll leave the drawing to someone else.

THE STEEL INDUSTRY

This set of stamps is a commemoration of the steel industry. But what isn’t so obvious is what the stamps depict. Thankfully we have a 1200dpi scanner and my imagination on our side, while the stamps have nothing but fading ink on theirs.

5-4 In this image, there’s a glorious steel bar pressing machine, with happy employees working away. The machine looks to be operating on the main floor of hell, what with the inferno in the background. Lady talking on the phone seems to be pretty impressed, probably because she’s got a scroll in her hand that has the sacred recipes for the best satanic pizza you’ll ever know.

5-3 This stamp is straightforward. I mean it’s a giant bucket of molten steel being dumped into another giant bucket of molten steel. Look at the one dude who’s waving at the steel though, if I’m not mistaken that’s definitely a towel around his shoulder, which makes me wonder if he really thinks that he’ll be able to wipe off some molten steel, should it drip on to him. Idiot, he should know the best way to clean off molten steel is with tide to go.

5-5 Here we have a bunch of long steel rods all over the place, a train missing its caboose, a factory in the background and some guys yelling to get the rods inserted in the right places. The boring blue sky is a urine yellow thanks to the steel mill.

5-2 It looks like buddy’s machine blew up or something and started spewing molten liquid steel all over the place. The employees aren’t looking very concerned and I don’t even think they care. Must be unionized. They’re definitely poking it with those metal poles though. I’m not sure how helpful that would be, but I’m no steelworker so for all I know that’s exactly what you do when molten steel spills all over the floor and you’re about re-enact the final scene of Terminator 2.

5-1 This train was recently attacked by combination of Uighur suicide bombers and Japanese kamikaze pilots; it’s definitely seen better days. This stamp reminds people that these two groups of people must be demonized and destroyed at all costs…even if it means wearing crocs, or even worse, crocs with socks.

As it turns out, if you look at these stamps in their proper numerical order, instead of the arbitrary one I’ve given them, they represent the entire steel making process. 炼焦, 炼铁, 炼钢, 轧钢, 成品. And that would be: coke-making, iron smelting, steel making, steel rolling and the finished product. Nevertheless, that isn’t a very interesting way of looking at them, it’s far more enjoyable to pretend they’re scenes from Dante’s Inferno aka Communist China.

WEIRD SCIENCE

This set features four stamps, with distinct colours for each stamp. Each stamp has some kind of technology going on in the main image but in the bottom third there is also a little image outline in a little square. I have no idea what the fuck these are. I will try my best to interpret everything so that if some day monkeys can read, they will know what these stamps mean and how they relate to communism…or banana milkshakes.

Orange: dual tape recorders with a giant gear in the background, possibly some laser beams shooting randomly and a spark from God knows what kind reaction, maybe one of the lasers accidently shot the gear. Small image in the corner looks like a very primitive robotic arm cruising around a skateboard. The tape recorders signify the government having greater power to record conversations and spy on people. The gear is a classic communist symbol what with us being the cogs and all. The lasers are punishment for being caught talking nasty on the phone and being recorded by one of those tape recorders. The spark is of course what happens to your head when the laser hits it, but they seemed to have censored out the brains and skull fragments that would be part of it. The skateboarding arm is actually on its way to get attached to someone who was accidentally targeted by one of the lasers.

Green: a tractor spraying fertilizer/pesticide on fields in between rows of genetically modified trees (you can tell right away that they’re GMO because they all look exactly the same.) In the background there is a crop duster aircraft being piloted remotely by the operator of the tractor or a very intelligent chipmunk. Small image in the corner looks like a gear with a bug’s eyes and nose in the middle. The main image demonstrates that even 30 years ago, Chinese farmers were universally using advance crop science and mechanization to ensure top quality products. The small image more than likely is a warning to humans that us “cogs” will soon be controlled by an all powerful insect overlord, who will make us all farmers, or perhaps farm us as rations for his brood.

Red: We’ve got ourselves a fine strategic nuclear warhead, a nuclear submarine, a group of four paper airplanes being tossed off by someone who clearly doesn’t give a damn and concentric circles around the sun. The small image is a bulky and ineffective satellite dish, used by CCTV to broadcast their brainwashing all around the world. The circles around the sun identify it as the target of the ICBN from the sub, because obviously the red sun represents Japan and everyone knows that China loves Japan so much; they want to give them a nice big nuclear hug. The paper planes are actually an accurate representation of China’s air force at the time, before they upgraded to balsa wood and the current rabid seagulls.

Blue: Atoms spinning around a green nucleus, with sparkling stars in the background, and a double helix replicating itself in the foreground. Small image is difficult to decipher but I’ve narrowed it down to either a medieval warrior helmet, a squid amputee, or quite possibly the shortest, stubbiest rocket to ever be conceived by the human race. After a good long think about meaning these two incredibly symbolic images represent, their impact on the human race and particularly China at this point in history and their use in the future, it finally dawned on me. They mean nothing at all. The sparkles are just there to add pizzazz, kind of like how a 16-year-old girl going out to the bar puts sparkles all over her face in an attempt to look mature, but instead they scream JAILBAIT. The confounding thing in the corner is visible proof that when China wants to make something that people simple cannot understand regardless of how much they try and think about it, they can, with ease. This ability would be put to use often in the 20th and 21st centuries.

1960 “The Birds of Communist Paradise” 中苏反好同盟互助条约签订十周年

This stamp is a glorious contradiction, making it not so different from the concept of communism itself. It actually commemorates 10 years since the signing of an alliance between China and the Soviet Union. If I may, allow me to transcribe what the Chinese are really saying to the Russians: “yeah you can send off as many of those little messenger pigeons as you want, the second your big noses are pointing in another direction we’re gonna hunt them down and cook us up some 黄山炖鸽. By the way, thanks for helping us build all those machine gun factories and nuclear weapons.” Of course the sino-soviet relationship had already gone off the rails at this point, but you gotta give the Chinese credit for playing cool/dumb until the very moment shit hits the fan.

1963 “You’re looking at the Huang Mountain” 莲花峰 迎客松 西海云潮

When browsing through stamps from the 60s, the propaganda slowly started to give way to natural scenes of China, such as these chilled out drawings of different parts of Huangshan mountain. The three I’ve got here are part of a larger series that features about eight or so different “scenic spots” at the mountain. My feelings towards the “scenic spots” regardless, I wish I coulda checked out Huangshan back in the day before the red hat brigades came marching in to take it over.

1964 “Silent But Deadly” 炼油

Still proud of their industry, it wasn’t hard to find more stamps featuring factories, refineries and other industrial buildings that might have fit well in a Super Mario level. China treated industry like a rapper who just topped the charts treats money…flaunt that shit like it’s going out style. But for China, industry never went out of style, factories are still growing as fast as the US trade deficit is, gobbling up the shit they manufacture in the process. I especially like how they put those red commie flags on top of the refinery. You know everyone gets their fair share of that oil. Just some get fairer shares than others.

1964 “Dam Invisible Friends” 新安水电站

According to the titles of the stamps, these two are images of the Xin’an River Hydroelectric Station. Unfortunately I tried searching for this structure on Wikipedia so that I could find the significance of it, and why it merits it not one but several stamps commemorating it, but was I couldn’t find an article about it. As we all know, if it ain’t on Wikipedia, then it sure as shuttlecock don’t exist. Just goes to show ya, China loves dams so much their making up imaginary ones just so they can put them on stamps.

1964 “Brothers From Other Mothers” 庆祝非洲自由日

After googling around I learned that African Liberation Day is the 25th of May. In the late 50’s and early sixties after most African countries got emancipated from their colonial overlords they all got together with some beers and strippers to celebrate. The whole lot of ‘em had such a blast that they decided to make it an annual thing. Or something like that. What I do know is despite China apparently wishing Africans well with the issue of this stamp, many Chinese still look down on people with darker melanin. You don’t even have to look farther than this very stamp to see it, I mean look at the way the Chinese guy is dressed, with a modern jacket, a Mao hat and even some snazzy sunglasses that I’m sure will come in handy when he turns around to face that giant ball of fire behind him. Poor black fella on the other hand is wearing nothing but goddamn bed sheets. What’s up with that? I don’t even think African tribal people wear that. The only possibility is that African Liberation Day has one hell of a toga party and only China is in on the secret. Also note how the Chinese guy is looking strait ahead, while the black guy is looking off, almost like he’s wondering what the hell he’s got himself into. Well my roman robed friend, you got yourself a sweet deal on some Chinese arms in exchange for whatever natural resources you’ve got left.

I set out on a mission to acquire a small collection of PRC stamps from years past. My first foray to the obvious destination of the post office turned out to be unsurprisingly useless. There, they only sell current stamps used for postage, or recently printed collector sets in ludicrous display cases that outweighed the face value of the stamps by several orders of galactic magnitude.

After further trolling around the internets I managed to locate a small back alley type area off of Qingdao’s cultural street (昌乐路). For those out of the loop, many Chinese cities have these cultural streets, or districts that are filled with stores selling reproductions of classic art, giant posters of grass script Chinese poetry, and weird jade formations that look like translucent green feces. It was an easy to miss back alley, but once I ventured past the gates, there was a whole swarm of shops selling eclectic junk like old coins, stamps, bank notes, and magical scrolls for summoning drunken bureaucrats.

I tried to get a selection of stamps spanning the years since the dawn of the PRC. From the time of Mao’s witch hunts for landlords and merchants, to the present days of the CPC’s witch hunts for proletariat and porno, my objective was to see how China pictured itself during different generations. Collecting the physical stamps I could care less about. What I was after was the design and the images, so I scanned them all high rez style and put them here for everyone to ogle over.

1954 “Everyone Loves Communism” （中华人民共和国第一届全国人民代表大会）

This is the oldest stamp I bought, fresh from 1954. This perfect example of communist art has it all, red ink , the cheering masses, industrious factories, and a humongous hydroelectric dam. All this for a bargain face value of 800 Yuan. Assuming that was the price today, the average farmer could easily afford to send one letter, and then spend the rest of the month starving to death. So you better recognize that 1954 had inflation like a blow up doll. Also less obvious is the Chinese writing using traditional characters, instead of the simplified ones that didn’t get shoved down everyone’s throat until a few years after this stamp was made.

1957-59 “I’m in yur reactor, steelin yur secrets”
(武汉长江大桥，原子反应堆，回旋加速器 and unnamed pinko industrial scene)

I liked the drawing style of the first three stamps above, even though only two of them are from the same series, they all comically feature things developed in China with significant help from the Soviets. The Wuhan Yangtze River Bridge, atomic reactors, particle accelerators, all from Russia with love of course. I’d like to know what the average Chinese farmer would’ve thought of the particle accelerator and reactor stamps at the time. I mean, back then they wouldn’t even be able to contemplate what a particle is, yet alone a machine that accelerates the fuckin things. Hell, I didn’t even know what they were without looking at the titles (ok ok, I didn’t even know what they were after reading the titles, I had to google that shit). Going into the peasant mindset (aka normal everyday thinking for me), I would have to say the reactor looks like one bitchin mantou oven, and the particle accelerator looks like someone let the engineers drink too much rice wine again. As for the last stamp with all the lovely smokestacks, again I remind you, that perpetual blanket of smog that shrouds most of Asia, it’s been something they’ve been working on there for a while now.

The work that I liked the most was located in Star Gallery, a small place hidden away on the second level of a low-rise building snug between some of the bigger galleries. There on display was a solo exhibit by the artist Chen Fei (陈飞). The aesthetics of his work wasn’t an a-bomb on the stimuli or anything, but I liked its simplicity, stark colour schemes and high contrast. Dude’s work reminds me of single pane comics, Gary Larson not so much, but maybe I’m not the only one to see a little Shintaro Kago in there. Keeping with the subtle comic style, there was a dash of humor and irony mixed in too, of which I don’t often encounter here in industrial utilitarian land.

Now for a closer look at some of this work:

I’m Fine
Most of his paintings had one of two girls in his work. I’m not even sure if they were different girls, but they were definitely dressed different, and in my black and white world if someone can wear two completely different outfits, better watch your back, that loon probably has some mental disorder. I like the idea behind this piece, but because I don’t know whom either of these girls are it’s hard for me to get any real emotional attachment to it. For example, if this girl was my Suzie Wong, there might be more of that special feeling in my cockles, or maybe in my sub-cockle area, maybe in my liver, maybe even in my colon, I don’t know.

The Story Says, What is Is, What is Not Is, What Is is also Not
It’s such a simple idea: a character in the painting, painting the painting. Really though, there’s a lot more than that going on here. First we’ve got chicken pox all over the fucking place, I mean swine flu ain’t got nothing on this. Then we’ve got some interaction between the ironically dressed woman and the girl. Is she passing the torch so to speak? Is girl really a nurse who’s trying to salvage a crafts class at the old folks home gone awry? But perhaps the most important question in all of this…why isn’t the girl wearing any shoes?! The INSANITY!!!

The Left Fist Has No Strength
This one was cool enough, but I think it would have been far more accurate had the artist drawn a normal arm slightly above that tentacly mass that’s emerged from the girl’s torso. Why? Take a ride on a bus with a bunch of tanktop clad Chinese girls hanging onto the handles while their pit-muffs are shoved in your face and then you’ll know what I’m talking about. You also won’t be able to sleep for days.

Famous Painting
Continuing along with the theme of strange tentacles in place of body hair, we have this little number. Maybe the previous painting was the girl’s reaction to this one. But I’d be even less surprised if the artist got this idea from some dude here in Qingdao who tried to make off with some squid. Seriously, cephalopods are multiple-armed currency in this town.

Suddenly there’s Snow Tonight, Old Man Straight is Lovable
This was my favorite piece. I like how the foreground is perfectly lit as if it was daytime; yet clearly daytime it is not. Thanks to a childhood in the boondocks, I also have a thing for old tractors and trailers. Some other excellent details that aren’t shown in my low res photo, there is a run over frog on the road, and there’s a bloody arm hanging out the side of the trailer. The resulting combination effectively blows my mind.

To Remember Our Comrades by
This piece is no where near original, cause I’m certain I’ve seen similar work with all kinds of random dudes in a group shot like they just won the Stanley Cup of weirdness. It would be the perfect kind of painting to hang in a den of marijuana consumption, so that people would have something with lots of details to focus on when they’re stoned. I’m glad I didn’t have much of an affinity for this one, because at Y650000, (about C$110,000), I can only afford about 2 square inches of it. This brings me to my final conundrum.

Why is Chinese art priced only for those in possession of golden egg laying super geese?

Art is pretty. But no matter how wealthy I ever become, there’s no way I’m going to drop down as much money on one contemporary painting as I could on one hell of a WD40 fueled robot orgy nice sports car. Hell, for a hundred grand, I could make my own art (in the form of crudely drawn penises) and put it up full-page style in the New York Times. You better believe it’d get more exposure. I guess the ever growing legions of nationalistic Chinese millionaires combined with rich western muppets who want in on the next big thing has knocked the supply/demand curve into an image so distorted it could be artistic in it’s own right. In fact, that could be an entire series of hilarious paintings. I need to get paid for this shit. Maybe then I could buy some of this art…and barrels of WD40.

Anyone seen my coke stash? I’ve got some art to create and I need to be in the right state of mind…

798 was a former military industrial complex, used by the commies in the 50’s with some help from the East Germans and their Russian comrades. What’s fascinating is that several of the factories within the complex are still operational. A couple years back, some artists recognized that within the aging socialist industrial spaces there was enormous potential for studios, galleries and rent control that could save their hides from the pre-Olympic property boom. Then unfolded the same old story; the artists came, and like bears scavenging for honey, the wealthy followed. Probably unique in this all too familiar gentrification scenario, but not surprising considering the breakneck pace of China, is how the industry is being pushed out before it even collapsed. Most cases you’ve got areas that are run down because some industry bites the dust like steel in Hamilton or autos in Detroit. Nope, not here. They jump on that shit while it’s still steaming hot.

When I first heard of it, my mind conjured up images of yet another SoHo or Queen West. A land once filled with dirty hippies and bohemians thanks to the wicked creative environment, but then replaced by people with more money than brains. Here you’ve got wanky mix of bicycle riding artists, bmw driving artists, gallery staff of all colours, the aforementioned rich, Korean tourists surprised that their neighbors can think for themselves, some Chinese tourists who are just as surprised, and factory workers who look like they go through some kind of time warp on their way to work everyday. This leads to some enjoyable moments, like the look on the factories workers’ faces as they pass by the Korean tourists giving the peace sign in front of the pink statue of a naked woman riding a bike while spread eagle.

There’s no subway station within walking distance, so I took the metro to Sanyuan Bridge and then cabbed it from there, which was another 15 minutes. On arrival I was starving, and didn’t want to diddle around, so I quickly made haste to the nearest café that looked modestly busy and consumed what was obviously a frozen cooked pizza. Note to those who want to get good rations or refreshments, head to the back of the district near the train and there’s a street there that has much better options than the compost I ate. After my so-called meal I wandered…and wandered…and wandered. Seriously there was so many damn galleries in this place, looking at them was like trying to chop off the head of a hydra, you’d get through one and out pops two more. If you’re the type of person that will look at a piece of art as if you’re staring into the portal of another universe, where, I might add, they have stripper flavored milkshakes, then you could be here for a while. Another nice thing was that they’re all free, as in beer with vodka as a chaser. The art on the other hand, was the opposite of free and perhaps multiplied by the number of letters in this post. I’m taken aback that the local government went from putting 798 on demolition death row, to letting it exist, and all the while no admission fees have yet to be instituted. Usually if there’s an area of interest in China, there’s a price to it, regardless of whether it’s of actual interest or not. Perhaps the galleries have to pay extra “security” fees. Either way, it’s still a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon or two.

What I did come to realize though while walking around was how nice it must be to have a place like this. In Qingdao, a city of 7 million, and we might have 2 small galleries total. Hardly worth the effort to visit unless their showing something you dig. With 798, there’s something for everyone. Of course, what’s being exhibited changes all the time, so it’s not a been there done that kinda place. I’ll admit I’m probably not much of an art fanatic. I appreciate good photography, and there are some styles of painting, drawing and mixed media that float my boat, but I think most modern art is nothing more than fecal matter with sparkles thrown on top for distraction. It’s like the artist just pulled some crazy shit out of his ass, and then afterwards was like “so this piece represents the relentless struggle of the masses within a post-materialistic society and their natural spiritualistic harmony….GOOOOSE!” Alright then. So it was nice to come across not one but two galleries that featured quite a bit of work that blew my hair back. More on that later.

The best thing about 798 is the quantity and quality of all the spaces. Over time you begin to think those two words are mutually exclusive on the mainland. Gems like these remind you otherwise. It blows my mind the architecture they used back then for factories, when nowadays they’re all a bunch of blue and gray windowless boxes that are built in some enormous factory making factory. Lots of space has been converted into lofts serving all kinds of artistic endeavors, hopefully one of them being hardcore S&M activities involving the Beijing political elite. In many instances, the original features of the manufacturers have been left behind, like giant weigh scales, tooling machines, and hilarious communist slogans painted on the walls. I really liked searching for all the little details the area exudes. Of note, there’s a giant above ground piping system that runs all over the complex that serves some industrial purpose. Distributed sporadically throughout the area, there’s these leaky release valves that are dripping water (I hope) and steam into their environs.

798 yea or nay?

Definitely yea, if you want to check out the latest in crazy Chinese contemporary art, walking around in an area of Beijing without retards honking, industrial architecture, or have a steam valve fetish like I do, then 798 is for you.

Now for the photo tour:

Enlightening interior spaces!:

significant ceilings!:

head toward the light:

my screwy steam valve fetish:

And some chinglish to finish things off:

Finally, this is the bonus, my own work of art. “Purple shirt wearing mustache man contemplates life and spam amid chrome covered objects”