The Final Chapter: China Residency, Part 8

By Zoe Sua-Kay (MFA 2014)

After a week in the Chinese capital and having soaked up some of the local culture and scene close to our hotel, we decided it was time to put our tourist hats on and see some of global tourism’s most famous sites – The Forbidden City, the Summer Palace and of course, the Great Wall of China.

The Forbidden City

Probably somewhat unwisely, we chose one of the hottest days we’d yet experienced to explore the Palace. Without trees and with it’s relentless expanses of  brick courtyards we were rarely offered any relief from the glaring sun as we trekked the 3,153 feet from the entrance (Meridian Gate) to the Imperial Gardens at the very end… and back again.
 

Forbidden City, view from the Meridian Gate.

The Hall of Supreme Harmony

Girl with Chinese head wear

Elliot Purse strikes a pose in the Forbidden City

The Summer Palace

The Summer Palace was a nice contrast to the flat, scorching and exposed layout of the Forbidden City. Located forty minutes from central Beijing by subway, the Palace is arranged over leafy hills and at the bank of the large Kunming Lake.

Lady in an old-fashioned Chinese outfit inside the Summer Palace

View from interior

The following day, and having delayed what we had deemed to be the climax of our cultural education in China, the time had finally come to undertake the epic experience of taking a hike along the Great Wall of China.

Elizabeth Shupe, Elliot Purse and James Adelman on the Great Wall

And what a hike it was!

We had the good fortune of visiting a part of the wall that had only just recently been opened to the public. Thus, we hardly encountered any tourists outside of the group we had gone with. We were able to explore the ancient, unreconstructed sections and happily take photographs without the reputed hoards of tourists at other, more well-known sections of the wall. 

However, this also meant that we had to be on guard of the loose, uneven terrain of the ancient wall. Without any kind of railing (or safety precautions of any kind at all), the possibility of miss-stepping and falling off the steep, isolated wall was imminent. But we made it.

Elliot conquers the wall

Beth conquers the wall

 

I conquer the wall

James conquers the wall

Last weekend in China

 

Our final weekend in China was spent with Ian, our guide on the Beijing side. He took us around CAFA’s/China Academy of Fine Art’s museum of ‘Excellent Student Work’. And excellent it was - we all left a little mind boggled (a.k.a downright intimidated) at the quality of work these Chinese undergraduates had produced.

This was followed by lunch down the road from Ai Weiwei’sStudio.

Ai Wei Wei’s studio, exterior view

And finally, a trip to Beijing’s famous 798 Art District, for an opening at Pace Beijing.

A word of sincere thanks.

On behalf of James, Elliot, Beth and myself, I would like to thank everyone who has made this trip possible. It has, with all honesty, been a life changing experience.

While we have now all finally separated to our respective homes, I think my fellow residency compatriots will appreciate the quote I quite simply could not have signed off without:

I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. 
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. 
I watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. 
All those... moments... will be lost in time, like] tears... in... rain.

- Roy Batty

On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.

The Colors of Beijing: China Residency, Part 7

By Elizabeth Shupe (MFA 2014)

Today it rained. We woke up to the sound of the water gently swishing down the gutter outside the window and drip-dripping off of the roof.  When I stepped outside of the hotel to make my way to breakfast, it seemed Beijing was still half asleep, curled into itself like a contented house cat  The rain continued to drizzle down from the sky.

In the early afternoon we took the subway to the National Art Museum, grateful to have an indoor activity to do on a day such as this. We walked through an exhibit of delicate ink paintings done in a traditional style. Each showed incredible skill- deft handling of line combined with subtle washes of grey tones rendered both the sweep of great vistas and the tiny intricacies of a human face with precision. Most of the paintings were immense, and they filled the gallery with their presence, requesting respect and silence. Their fine grey gradations and the blurry edges where the wet ink had soaked into the rice paper put me in mind of the world I had woken up in that morning- a moist, monochromatic world, where all sounds were hushed by the steady drip of the water from the sky.

Yes, Beijing could be that way, I supposed. But it had surprised me when I had woken up this morning to find the vibrant city dampened and quiet. I had only spent a few days here, and yet I felt that I had a good grasp on the character of the place- colorful and bustling, filled with shouts and laughter, cooking smells, and countless rickshaws. The city of Beijing was a wrinkled, knowing smile on the face of China, reflecting its deep history and good nature. But today, a more reserved and stately Beijing was revealed. It was a new color to add to the palette I had been composing in my head, a palette of all the colors of this ancient city.

It had started in the Forbidden City, my mental palette, when I had noticed the specific yellow of all of the roof tiles. It was a mustardy yellow, verging on gold, and it stretched across the Forbidden City, crowning almost every building. My guide book had said that the yellow color had belonged to the emperor, and no one else had been allowed to decorate their buildings with it. I had thought about what power that must be, to own a color. As an artist, I must say I was a tad bit jealous.

The next day, on my way to breakfast, I stumbled across a store selling lucky cats. They came in different colors- red, pink, blue, green, yellow, and black. Each color meant something different, and although I couldn’t discern what they meant, I knew they were all auspicious. The round smiling faces of the cat figurines in so many different hues cheered me, and it was then that I truly started paying attention to the colors of the city.

The maroon curtains of the bicycle rickshaws matched almost exactly the rich maroon of the buildings at the opulent Lama Temple. Gold and bronze Buddha statues peered out from shop windows, and gold decorated the eaves of the concubine’s quarters in the Forbidden City. White marble gleamed on bridges where the railings were carved to look like clouds. The same color was more austere in a statue of the philosopher and religious leader Confucious.  Bright green and blue paintings of dragons adorned wooden gates. The sky was a paler shade of blue, the trees lining the streets a more lively green.

Also green was the bodies of two crickets in cages that I heard before I saw, in a small courtyard off of a narrow hutong alley. There were orange carp in a bowl, glinting in the sunlight, and a paler orange cat who shared tea with me in a quiet teahouse. There was a black bird in front of a convenience store, its leg shackled to a leather cord that was tied to its perch. The acid pink of plastic lotus flowers in a garland contrasted with the soft blush of fresh peaches that were being sold in the very same store.  Truly, this was a city made of color.

But the color that spoke the loudest here was red.  A bright red like oxygenated blood. In the form of giant red silk tassels it hung in nearly every shop front window. Red lanterns hung in the trees over a shopping street, marching in straight lines above the shoppers. The same red was on cartons of Double Happiness cigarettes, and in the fresh peppers siting in a bowl in front of a Sichuan restaurant, even on the Chinese flag itself that snapped in the breeze above Tiananmen Square. Red was the color of luck, and good fortune.

I struggled to remember that fact as Zoe and I huddled under her umbrella on the short trek back from the subway station after the art museum. We were talking about how much was riding on our next year at the Academy, how simultaneously excited and terrified we were. The red lanterns in front of a restaurant had turned dark and saggy in the rain, I noticed. I felt a little like that myself.

But then I remembered a piece of graffiti I had seen on my way to breakfast that morning. It had been written in English, black spray-paint on a grey concrete wall, and was just as colorful as the morning had promised it be- in other words, completely devoid of chroma. But I remembered the message. “KEEP ON PAINTING” it had said, with an underline for emphasis. “Ok then, I will.” I thought to myself.

Keep on painting. Its all any of us can really do. But in a world as colorful as this one, those words promise adventure.

On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.

Satisfying the Inner Tourist: China Residency, Part 6

By Elliot Purse (MFA 2014)

After a long, post-opening, post-artist talk, post-John Jacobsmeyer hang out, post-spa weekend, all of us subconsciously decided some down time was due. Monday and Tuesday were spent mostly entertaining ourselves and taking care of all the little things we’d put off over our eventful weekend (i.e. laundry, shopping, and getting a little more time to take advantage of our great studio here at SHU). However, by the time Wednesday rolled around, we were totally rejuvenated and ready to embrace our inner tourists. So we jumped on the subway and headed into the city center. 

Contrary to the familiar grime of the New York MTA, the Shanghai subway was impeccably clean and made for an easy ride into the city. Once in the city, we headed over to the Bund area to take in the incredible skyline of Pudong and hitched a ride on the infamous “sight-seeing tunnel,” a light/laser side-show-esque tunnel under the Huangpu River.

When we exited the futuristic trolley that had taken us through the tunnel, we found ourselves right around the corner from the Oriental Pearl Tower. Staring up at the giant pink pearlescent orbs, we decided to go see Shanghai from above by making our way up to the viewing decks.

Somewhere around 265 meters above the ground, the view was stunning and uniquely unnerving due to the glass floor on the second observation deck. I noted that it actually felt similar to seeing the mountainranges on our earlier excursion. While the buildings certainly were not as mammoth as mountains, the sheer expanse of highrises receding into the distance was just as sublime.

 

We made are way down, grabbed some nearby food, and continued our journey over to the Old City. The Old City of Shanghai is the original urban development of the city center. I was told that some of the buildings are between four and 500 years old. Of course, like the rest of Shanghai, the incredible architecture of the past is now completely infused with modern shops, and it is a bustling maze of streets. 

After we had walked and seen as much as we could, bought some gifts while perusing a few markets and tended to some hard-earned blisters, Wang Yi met us for a quick dessert as his local favorite dessert cafe. Now, I’m not a huge sweets person, but when my plate of fudge hit the table, you can bet it didn’t take long for me become a sweets person. The night concluded with an evening walk through the French Concession, another district of Shanghai, and a few drinks at a jazz club: inner-tourist satisfied.

After de-installing our show, exploring the city a little more on foot, visiting the South Bund Soft Material Market (an incredibly cheap tailoring market), we also got a chance to have dinner with Yi, his grandparents, parents and extended family. The meal once again was an incredible spread of food, which we eagerly and thankfully devoured. 

After all this, the rest of the weekend was spent, most importantly in my eyes, with a few last nights with the incredible group of international friends who so warmly shaped our experience on campus and in the city. Much love to Roland, Wen, John, Sylvia, Ray, Marta, Kamal, Agata, Anna, Peter, Sara, Elke, Rory, Andy, Alec, Iona, Tania, Dasha, the Kate’s and Mateo (and this goes without saying of course: Wang Yi!).      

On May 25, four Academy students arrived in China to start a two-month residency in Shanghai and Beijing. James Adelman, Elliot Purse, Elizabeth Shupe and Zoe Sua-Kay (all members of the class of 2014) will share their experiences here throughout the summer.