64 | MAY/JUN 2017 | ISSUE 103of art space that embraced the innate
communality of hutong life. HomeShop,
which opened in 2008, was a trailblazer for
independent nonprofits in the hutongs. In
name and in ethos, HomeShop aimed to
investigate and merge domestic and public
areas. In this sense, its hutong location
was perfect. The converted glass shop-
front was intended to confuse as to what
the space was, enticing people who would
not normally find themselves within a
conventional white cube.
Jiali Gallery, which opened in 2012, took
a different approach, but one that remained
rooted to the hutongs’ intersectional position
between public and private, with founder
Daphné Mallet opening an art space in her
home. Jiali Gallery was an oddity in that it
was a commercially focused hutong gallery.
This model remains a rarity, and Mallet once
quipped, “It’s difficult to attract collectors
to the hutong, as they can’t park their cars!”
Mallet emphasized how difficult it was for
Jiali Gallery to remain financially viable and
she returned to France in 2016. HomeShop
also faced financial issues; rapidly rising
rental costs caused their closure in 2013.
Yet, despite this disheartening aspect
of real estate, a slew of spaces continue to
offer art in the hutongs. I: project space,
an independent nonprofit, was opened
in 2014 by Anna-Viktoria Eschbach and
Antonie Angerer. This year they expanded
into a second hutong location, allowing
them to double the capacity of their
residency program. In many ways they
picked up from where HomeShop left off.
They recently acquired some propaganda
boards (xuanchuanlan) within a hutong in
Dongsi, an area of central Beijing, and plan
to exhibit artworks within and to the local
community. In fact, they were given these
boards on the condition that they would
instigate community-based activities with
the adjacent neighborhood center.
In a discussion of the significance of the
independent and nonprofit organizations
found in the hutongs, Eschbach and
Angerer extolled “the necessity of having
spaces outside of Beijing’s art centers at
Caochangdi and 798, which are almost
completely full of museums and commercial
galleries,” going on to say, “we independent
spaces are often portrayed as aiming to
tear down the system, but it is not so much
about being against big institutions; it is
more about creating alternatives and spaces
where another kind of art-making, curating
and working with artists is possible, another
way of talking about art.”
The Institute for Provocation (IFP) also
hosts a hutong residency program, but takes
a different approach to its art projects. The
three directors, Hu Wei, Dai Xiyun and Song
Yi, told me that the IFP is intentionally
insular in its practice, choosing to bypass
the inherent communality of hutong life to
focus on academic-style research projects.
Although the subject of their forthcoming
project is not yet set in stone, they were able
to say that it will hone in on economic and
social transformations that have taken place
in particular Chinese cities.
IFP’s research-driven practice is similar
to that of the recently opened Salt Projects,
a tiny space (even by hutong standards),
with an explicit focus on performance art.
My first question on meeting co-founder
Yuan Fuca was if the choice of a hutong
was guided by the trend of gentrification.
“No,” in short, was her answer. Instead,
like I: project space, they want to establish
physical and ideological distance from
Beijing’s commercially dominated art
zones. Plus, their space is difficult to find,
an aspect of hutongs that Yuan values,
“since it can act as a kind of filter of the
audience, meaning that those who find it
have done their research.” Space, or lack
thereof, is a defining feature of this gallery
and others like it. One of Yuan’s ideas for
dealing with this is a revolving “curated
bookshelf of pretentious, intellectual
books,” allowing for a compact exhibition
platform; also, performances often
take place inside, while the audience
stands outside watching through the glass,
in a fashion not at all dissimilar to
Arrow Factory.
Arrow Factory, which opened in 2008
in a former storefront space, has found
an ingenious way to deal with the lack of
space in the hutongs. Their exhibitions are
presented through a glass window visible
from the street 24 hours a day, and aim to, in
the words of one of the co-founders, Pauline
J. Yao, “offer restrained interventions
into the everyday context of the hutong.”
Projects often involve the participation of
local shopkeepers, garbage collectors and
restaurant owners. Yao says: “Given theubiquitous presence of ‘white box’ spaces,
which insist on prescribed encounters
with contemporary art, we find that Arrow
Factory can offer a much-needed platform
for artists to engage directly with the
social relations of a specific site.” With its
tiny space, constant public visibility and
its ostensibly community-based artistic
practices, Arrow Factory is the archetypal
community hutong art space.
In contrast to this is AOTU Studio, a new
type of space of which there are likely to be
more in the future. On its lower floor is an
exhibition space and bar, a boutique hair
salon occupies the middle floor, and on the
top floor is a roof garden. This hybrid space
unashamedly draws on the hype of the
relatively recent hipster-led gentrification
of the hutongs, attaching itself to a “cool”
label that has been slapped onto tight
streets densely filled with bars, restaurants
and foreigners.
There are also many more spaces—
Intelligentsia Gallery, Lab 47, Micro
Yuan’er, Yipai Hutong Space, Penghao,
Shijia Courtyard Museum—that make up
the hutong art constellation in Beijing. The
narrow backstreets are perfect plots for
community and participatory focused art,
but their associated traditional values do
not always direct the ethos of its art spaces.
As a genuinely interesting alternative to the
developed art districts, Beijing’s hutongs
are well suited to play host to a melange of
the capital’s best art spaces. Sadly, they are
increasingly being destroyed, fetishized
and stripped of their traditional resonances.
Here’s to hoping that the interesting
variety of hutong art spaces can thrive, and
more importantly, that hutong life itself
can survive.YU BOGONG Yu Bogong Vodka, 2014, mixed media, 50 x 180 cm. Installation view of “Yu Bogong Vodka Art Project” at I: project space,
Beijing, 2014. Courtesy the artist and I: project space.See our website for Arabic and Chinese versions of this article.