798

Beijing is an impressively large city, filled with many different regions or districts, each with its own style and character.  District 798 of Beijing, or more commonly known as the art district, is characterized by not just an exquisite use of outdated industrial buildings for art exhibition spaces, but also of any open space in the area as a way to highlight the abstract and the unique.  Here, anything goes, from hills covered in white balls, to big blue atlases made from bottle caps, to graffiti covered school buses and giant colourful statues.  In this case, I think the pictures speak more than words do so I'll leave the viewer to piece the rest together.  Wikipedia has an excellent article on the art district of Beijing for more context so you can take a look there for more information about how this place came to be and where its future might lie.

This entire area of the city is a maze of old buildings that were once for industrial use filled with works of art that were as broad and varied and creative in their imagination than you can imagine.  I've been to Chelsea and Soho in New York and I'd say the art here was just as impressive and skilled.  Not your 3 year old's craft class.

I got my friend/roommate to take this cool photo of me with this graffiti in the background.  Stunning, isn't it?

Inside this groovy record store was a lot of cool recording machinery and records and artsy/musical pieces, as well as a grumpy lady who told me not to take anymore pictures.

There was something about this ginormous copper installment of a tiger with a black stone background of some kind that really stimulated me.  I couldn't take my eyes off of it.  It's a really striking piece.

A whole tree covered in red thread!  Can you imagine???

A surprisingly common sight in this area: pretty young models smiling for the camera.  Here, a model poses in front of a bus covered in graffiti and art as a display piece in the heart of the 798 district. 

This is a statue of a man with his head (or many of them) strewn all over a grassy hill.  In its place, a screen of some sort (I assume a television's) is place on his shoulders.  You can probably get the message of the artist if you think about the media and so on.