Songzhuang art colony

The Songzhuang art colony (simplified Chinese: 宋庄艺术区; traditional Chinese: 宋莊藝術區`; pinyin: Sòng zhuāng), located in Songzhuang Town of Tongzhou (in the eastern suburbs of Beijing), is the most famous and biggest artist community in Beijing. More than 2,000 artists live there.

Originally representing the avant-garde, the area now accommodates artists who paint in varying styles, ranging from the avant-garde to the academic. Sculptors and photographers also call the area home.

The previously institutionalized and socially motivated art system produced many of the initial artists of the Chinese avant-garde. Were it not for the breakaway radicals of the last two decades, there simply would be no artistic community in Songzhuang, even if its present concerns are perhaps more of a monetary rather than a sociological nature. With a shift catering more towards the foreign market occurring in the 1980s, and the rise of the nouveau-riche at the beginning of the new century, today it is both the growing upper middle class in the cosmopolitan cities as well as foreign collectors and galleries that have become the prominent collectors of contemporary art in China, though one would have to be über-cynical to suppose that the creative process has become wholly money-orientated to the modern artist living here. Far from it, in fact, a spirit of idealism, a “Songzhuang spirit” well and truly exists, and can even be examined from a historical perspective, where the roots of the artistic community can be traced back to Yuanmingyuan, the grounds of the Old Summer Palace in the north-east of Beijing. It was there that in the 1980s, like-minded free spirits congregated, living relatively poorly, though freely, escaping from the rat race and pressures of modern society. Artists arrived from all over China, celebrating a creative community and period of intense artistic exploration.

A trend was established for artists to migrate away from the cities and to form their own communities such as the famous Beijing East Village. It brought far-reaching consequences for the Chinese avant-garde scene, as focus shifted away from the emerging capitalistic distractions and political pressures and opportunity was given in a tranquil environment for inner reflection and deep contemplation. However, problems arose once the community began attracting attention/notoriety from the media, gallery owners and other quarters, making artistic life more difficult as the once relaxed and free atmosphere came under closer scrutiny. The 1993 documentary ‘Seeking Dreams on the Verge’, by the director Zhang Jiarui, explores these issues.

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