Next Trip

In the next couple of weeks, nearly a dozen art fairs, biennials and triennials are opening in Asia and I will be attending five--Art Beijing, Guangzhou Triennial, Shanghai Biennial, ShContemporary and the Taipei Biennial--all in ten days. My biggest worry--how to get taxis to and from the airports and how to get my cell phone to work in Taiwan. Of course, I should really be worrying about burn-out. I mean, how much art can you see in just over a week? The fairs are the main event, but I have been receiving emails from tons of galleries who will also open shows coinciding with the festivities. It's too much, especially with jet lag.

Olympic TV

Beijing is far away from my apartment in New York, but not during the opening ceremonies with my remote in hand. Most of my friends in Beijing were staying far away from the games anyway, especially Ai Weiwei, the artist who helped design the Bird's Nest with Herzog & de Meuron. He was distancing himself from the entire festivities, disappointed with China's failure to live up to the One World One Dream banner. Instead, he found a revival of rampant nationalism with the advent of the games, as did I on my most recent trip to Beijing in May. I also met expats who were forced to leave the country to renew their visas under new rules instituted for the Olympics. This was inconveniencing everyone as were all the new regulations for exhibiting art during the games and others restricting public gatherings of more than 50 people.

The Olympics should have been a mass celebration of Chinese culture, including contemporary art. But, many of the planned activites were cancelled or postponed until after the Olympics. I can't wait to hear the aftermath when I am back in China in September. I'll keep you posted.