Who needs galleries?

Stacey Duff talks to a new group of young curators and artists are taking art out of galleris and hanging it in the streets.

In April 2008, Americans Rania Ho and Pauline J Yao opened what has become one of the most innovative art spaces in the city – Arrow Factory. But the duo, both from San Francisco, surprisingly didn’t chose to locate in the city’s 798 art district; they opened it downtown, smack in a narrow hutong inside the Second Ring Road.

The location seemed insane for anyone pursuing maximum visibility during the 2008 Olympics. Back then, space in 798 was the hottest thing since edible underwear. But in the wake of the financial crisis, dozens of galleries have either gone kaput or vacated the art district. Suddenly, it seems the Arrow Factory idea was semiprophetic.

At least, it wasn’t stupid. ‘I think Beijing has long been dominated by a single operational model – the gallery model,’ says Rania Ho. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that, but it would be nice if the gene poolwas a bit more diverse.’

This month, Arrow Factory’s hutong space is running a series of rotating exhibitions featuring both Chinese and international artists. Since the end of the Olympics and the onset of the financial crisis, people are doing art, says Ho, ‘because they want to’. Megan and KC Vienna Connelly agree.

The two New York City sisters founded ChART Contemporary – a curatorial and consultancy team – with the goal of taking art to the masses. In April, they kicked off their ‘Open House’ series – innovative 72-hour shows that take place not in galleries, but in residential spaces that are either up for rent, for sale or tagged for demolition.

‘For us,’ Megan tells Time Out, ‘it’s important that people outside of galleries and the art scene are able to touch and experience art.’ Beijing-based Brit duo Oak Taylor- Smith and Martin Barnes have also shifted away from the 798 art district. Their art shows, which they document at www.thiscityart.org ,are often held in highway underpasses.

Taylor-Smith tells Time Out: ‘We realised that by doing shows in underpasses, we can cut out the middle man, and we don’t have to bother with other people. We just do it for ourselves and we learn aswe go. In that way we learn more and we have fun doing it.’

For some artists, 798 has turned into such a bad hallucination that you have to get away from it – gobs of crap art, crap tourist buses and regulations out the wazoo. ‘I don’t know if this has all been induced by the downturn,’ says Taylor-Smith, ‘but I do think part of it has to do with the state of places like 798.

They’ve been taken back over by local government and management companies, and the whole ethos of the area has changed.’ But even as the guerrillas make their silent parades through our autumn-leafed city, the Beast seems poised for a resurrection. Last month, Pace reopened its doors to show Chinese art megastar Zhang Xiaogang.

Faurschou gave Ai Weiwei his first 798 solo exhibition. Galleria Continua makes way this month for UK art icon Antony Gormley. Andin November, UCCA hold a massive exhibition of eight promising young Chinese artists.

In the meantime, under bridges and between cracks, the revolution continues. Arrow Factory maintains its hutong space; ChART plans for additional Open House events this fall; and New Yorker Kat Don, along with local curator Chen Xinpeng, has even planned an October exhibition just outside the south gate of 798 – video art in a tent.

Whether it is the financial crisis, a changing ethos or simple human ennui, 798 may soon become the proverbial parked limo that every other disobedient dog wants to piss on. That could translate into more interesting work being shown outside art district walls. ‘I think that traditional and nontraditional spaces can coexist and even work together,’ says Megan Connelly.

But what’s going on right now is ‘definitely an indication that Beijing is looking for a change in the way people present art’. See art outside of galleries at Arrow Factory (www.arrowfactory.org.cn). Also visit Open House at www.chartcontemprary.com and Cuohuo, art in a tent, at www.nicouhuoma.com.