Last Sunday, the “Hungarian Cultural Season in China 2007-2008” had its opening festivities in Beijing.
The aim of this event series is to strengthen Chinese-Hungarian relations and popularizing Hungary as a place for Chinese investments in the heart of Europe.
Since 2004 China is the fifth biggest trading partner of Hungary, the Chinese already made bigger investments such as the Asia Center. There was an article about this topic in Monday's issue of the China Daily.
The first event in the scope of the cultural season was the opening of an exhibition on Kodály Zoltán's life and work at the campus of the Beijing Normal University, mainly organized by the Chinese Kodály Association. As for the fact that the “opening” was held in another building than the exhibition has been set up, I would rather call the event two hours of showmanship mixed with some musical part. It was simply the official part with the focus on the big shots, not so much on the culture.
The cultural part of this event was not so impressive. The best part was a Chinese children's choir performing some Kodály songs. They were very sweet and it was a nice gesture from the Chinese party.
The Hungarian appearance was not so great. The renowned pianist Tamás Vásáry performed well, but that was no surprise. The other Hungarian performer, Ági Szalóki was not a good choice. Still, the Csángó songs she has chosen were very nice, a fact which saved her performance.
The speeches were appropriate to the occasion.
Prof. Dr. Zhong Binglin, the president of the Beihing Normal University, was first, Hungary's prime minister followed. Mr Gyurcsány acted like a good prime minister, his speech was well written and better delivered than I expected. He mainly emphasized Kodály's importance in music history and education.
Only one thing in his speech sounded wrong: “This is the biggest Hungarian cultural event in abroad ever”. That's simply not true.
The second programme on the schedule was the vernissage of an exhibition on Hungarian Gypsy art at the Boyi Gallery. I wrote a seperate article on the exhibition itself. They had live “Gipsy” music, which gave the vernissage a big touch of kitsch... I love folk music, so I liked it.
In the evening a concert was held in the Sun Yat-sen Concert Hall. Mister Vásáry played piano again, accompanied by his wife, the ballett dancer Henriett Tunyogi. There were also a few folk dancers, some operetta actors and a bunch of instumentalists. Szalóki and her friend Beáta Palya were nothing extraordinary.
The positive highlights of the concert were Róbert Farkas (violin, accordion) and Antal Kovács (guitar, vocal). They brought authenticity and cheer to the Sun Yat-sen Hall.
On Sunday, I attended the vernissage of an exhibition at the 798 Art Zone featuring works by Su Jin Yuan (his blog can be found here), a fresh graduate from China's Central Academy of Fine Arts.
I became attached to the 798 Art Zone. I don't want to exaggerate, but it is really nice and has a similar atmosphere as the former Tuzraktar in Budapest, an independent cultural center I was involved in.
The first surprise was the presence of graffiti. I was already used to the thought that there is no subculture in Beijing, but I was not absolutely right. It's true: there is almost no graffiti in the city, the only mural paintings are sayings of Mao. 798 seems to be an exterritorial place in the city full of tags and throw-ups.
Partly I have to revise my opinion on Chinese art life. Still, I stand by my opinion that there is no living subculture in Beijing. There is no artistic self-expression of the people threw the methods of urban art. Alternative contemporary art is in a ghetto situation, as the 798 art district shows.
But: This ghetto situation is definitely better than the average situation in Western countries. In my experience a “Forbidden City of Arts”, an island in the city without the aesthetic control of advertisers and politics, with galleries, restaurants, tea houses, cafés, book stores and alternative fashion boutiques on one place is great. The advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
Especially in such a big country as China it is important to have a center of art, where the different art scenes of the country are able to present their works.
In the meantime, I read some articles about the the art district in Western media. Often the authors criticize the fact that art life in China is so much supported by the government. Now that I have seen the place I can surely tell you that I admire this solution. If I would have to decide between the government and the private economy as a sponsor for my project, I would choose the government. If the government sponsors something, you can see where your tax money goes and you don't have to put ugly adverts anywhere.
Of course cultural exchange is missing, everybody wants to go abroad, but only a very few can, and so on... After all I took a look at the homepage of the Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, one of the most important galleries at 798. It says: "Having closely followed the development of Chinese contemporary art since the late 1980s, Yukihito Tabata set up the gallery with the intention of bringing artists from China, Japan and Korea together and introducing them to a wider audience."
I am happy to read this and I know how important this is, but I still think somebody could do more, and not only on the basis of private business.
My former radical statements are understandable when you look at all the crap we get to see in Europe. The Chinese contemporary art presented for example at this year's Art Basel was just... it is difficult to explain it without using four-letter words.
