A Brief Guide to Shenzhen's Contemporary Art Scene

It can easily be assumed that Shenzhen is not a cultural hotspot on the spectrum of Chinese cities. Situated on the border between mainland China and the special administrative region of Hong Kong, it transcended its role as market town between the regions to city in 1980. Although it is a relatively young compared to the likes of the ancient Beijing and its brimming history, don’t let this fool you. In what it lacks in great walls, imperial palaces and temples, it compensates for in its forward-thinking art scene. Rather fitting, considering its role as one of China’s most contemporary cities.

The Overseas China Town, or OCT, area of the city is an absolute hub for creative arts. Galleries boast works that are often seemingly beyond their time, and artwork often spills out of them into the surrounding street walls in the trendy OCT LOFT. Galleries (free galleries, may I add) and street art not enough for you? No worries. The streets are lined with arty cafes and indie shops, ready to inspire the budding artists among us. There’s also a weekly arts market on Saturdays, where local artists sell their crafts to visitors who share in the area’s creative thirst.

If you can’t tell already, I bloody love this place. After moving to Shenzhen just over two months ago, it has become my favourite place in all of the city. Its lazy, artistic vibes make me feel so damn zen. For this reason, here’s a quick round-up of my favourite galleries in the OCT area, including shows that have particularly inspired me.

OCAT: Wang Dongling, The Bamboo Path

An awesome installation that merges contemporary art with the traditional practice of calligraphy. A professional calligrapher, Dongling uses bamboo, a big symbol of Chinese culture, as the canvas for beautifully calligraphed Chinese poems about the symbolic plant. Perspex sheets are hung from the ceiling and surround the bamboo, with further famous quotes about the natural plant that they contain.

The place of the bamboo in the space makes the viewer walking through the path further emphasise the cultural significance of the plant. The text painted on it makes one reflect its inevitable and irreversible cultural associations. Despite being unable to read mandarin, each individual branch of bamboo felt different and meaningful.

The second room contains multiple works of Dongling’s scribblings, surrounded by a huge, ceiling length full of various Chinese characters, turning them from a mere method of communication into an abstract work of art. The visual outcome was truly striking. I was incredibly impressed by his ability to merge both the contemporary and the traditional, and his work fit perfectly in the OCAT space.

The space itself works perfectly; the large floor space and high ceilings do little to limit the space available to the artists, providing both artist and curator with total freedom of expression.

OCT LOFT: The Future is Not the Future

Basically a large warehouse, the LOFT space accommodates for exhibitions of all shapes and sizes. The space can easily be manipulated, providing the required space for any exhibition. The gallery regularly features themed exhibitions, where selected artists produce works following a certain concept- in this case, the future of art.

An absolute mind-fuck of an exhibition, which pushes the boundaries of anything that you’ve ever known about art. Artists from China, UK, USA, Australia and the Netherlands, display works which link both the future and visuals arts in an original forward-thinking way, forming a new take on the ideas of the Futurist movement that was born in 1920s Italy. The artists experiment with the senses, taking on sound, sensuality, science and synaethetics. Artworks include a super trippy VR experience, a funky glow-in-the-dark room, some objects that take the piss out of mass-production and the most fucked up futuristic sensual video piece ever. You are likely to leave questioning what the hell is about to happen in the world. In short, imagine Black Mirror as an art exhibition.

OCT Art and Design Gallery: Marije Vogelzang, Eating Design

A brief walk south from the LOFT area and you hit another strip of galleries. Surrounded by a canopy of trees and a futuristic man-made lake, lies the OCT Art and Design Gallery. Its exterior is an artwork itself, with its reflective black exterior.

Eating design draws on the significance of the act of eating, manipulating the role of food consumption in today’s society. Vogelzang’s interest lies on the role of time within the food chain, and its cultural significance on society, blurring the line between food, society and artwork. Highlights include a proposal for synthetically grown plant meats, a plan for an egg-currency and a mass of bags of rice with the public’s memories of rice fondly etched on them. It’s also important to note that much of Vogelzang’s work draws on public participation in order to create performance art- the memories written on the rice were created by her audience themselves.

He-Xiangning Art Museum

Steps away from the Art and Design Gallery you’ll find the He-Xiangning Art Museum; China’s first museum to celebrate an individual artist. Clearly, He-Xiangning is a pretty big deal in the Chinese art world. Her artwork is in a classic contemporary Japanese style, with ink painting depicting traditional rural scenes- she actually studied art in Tokyo in the 1920s. Turns out she was popular amongst the Chinese communist party too, – she was mates with Mao and Deng, and was highly celebrated amongst the party. It is unsurprising, then, that such a figure gained her own museum dedicated to her memory, in a country where freedom of expression, particularly in art, is heavily suppressed.

The museum boasts another snazzy lake, this time surrounded by some cool contemporary sculptures. It contains a permanent exhibition of He-Xiangning’s most famed works and a temporary exhibition space that shows new exhibitions every few months. When I visited the current exhibition explored the connection between computer rendering and art, with visual effects designers pushing the boundary of art and computers. Works included an artist’s impression of grand theft auto, a trippy as fuck visual animation of a figure swimming through the sky and some fun freshly designed mouth tools. A little too conceptual for me, but enjoyable all the same. Yet again Shenzhen has produced yet another show fitting to its modern status. It was also great to contrast the super contemporary and conceptual works with the more traditional works of He-Xiangning.

The real highlight was the work of China’s seemingly favourite artists. Her ink paintings seemed to effortlessly depict the natural beauty of traditional China. It’s clear why Mao loved her- she celebrates rural life, a central theme in Chinese Communism, beautifully. I’m a real sucker for some traditional ink tree paintings, and I definitely got my fix here. This section is also a great escape from the photo-crazed Chinese visitors, who seem to love using contemporary work as a backdrop to their photoshoots. Here’s an idea China, instead of peace signing in front of art holding the exhibition leaflets, why don’t you actually look at the art?????