Art

Documenting Beijing's graffiti

JDM090526steeldan.jpg
Steel Dan at work in Sanlitun, by LLYS

"Patchwork," a graffiti performance, was held in Sanlitun on May 24. During the event, French group TT crew and Beijing's BJPZ, along with Steel Dan (发条钢蛋), painted murals on large wall-like canvases specially set up for the occasion.

Graffiti blogger LLYS posted photos of the artists in action, sketch books and stencils, and details of finished work.

More images of the event, including several wider-angle views, can be found on Beijing Boyce.

LLYS has been posting his photos of Beijing's graffiti to a Sina blog since mid-2007. In a web-chat with graffiti artists that year, he described his motivation for documenting graffiti:

JDM090526here.jpg

MO: Hello. I'm Mo with BJPZ. Saw your blog - so someone's paying attention to people like us! It's gratifying, and I have to thank you - heh - we don't even have lots of the pictures here! Keep in touch!
LLYS: Hi, Mo! I mostly focus on Beijing graffiti, trying to get as many photos of Beijing graffiti as I can. Who knows, maybe I'll set up a graffiti museum in the future (maybe online, or maybe inside a museum). Some people photograph Beijing's disappearing hutongs and courtyard homes; I photograph Beijing's graffiti, which is doomed to disappear. You will one day bid goodbye to your spray paint, but I'll never leave my camera behind....

SOOS: I'm really moved seeing all the photos of graffiti you've taken. You're doing something real. Kudos.
LLYS: Thanks for the encouragement, SOOS. When I passed Dawang Road on the third, I looked off to the southwest, and your work had already disappeared. This is why I'm continually taking photos of graffiti. Graffiti - whether you like it or not - belongs to this city, is a part of this city, and even when it disappears from the street, it will remain alive in my photo album...

Adrian Sandiford recently profiled LLYS for Time Out Beijing:

He's effusive, welcoming and wildly enthusiastic about graffiti. He's happy to talk about anything and everything, except for his real name, which must remain a secret because of his day job. If his superiors found out what he does in his spare time, he tells us, he'd lose his job.

Llys, as we must call him, would soon be rumbled should his boss pop round – his apartment has bookshelves full of photo albums packed with the street art photos he's taken, which must number more than 5,000 images.

And that's just of the films he's developed. Add his digital database to the equation and we're talking more than 15,000 pictures. All of which raises the question: why do it?

"The reason is quite simple," says Llys. "I like photography, and have a background in art. At the beginning, back in 2005, I was just taking pictures of Beijing's streets. I became interested in the composition of bar signs in Sanlitun. I only took a picture of some graffiti because of the colours. Then, by chance, I saw Li Qiuqiu's work in Baihua Hutong in Xinjiekou, which shocked me."

The whole article is fascinating and well worth a read.

Links and Sources
Media Partners
Visit these sites for the latest China news
090609guardian2.png 090609CNN3.png
China Media Timeline
Major media events over the last three decades
Danwei Model Workers
The latest recommended blogs and new media
laomo2010x80.jpg
From 2008
Books on China
The Eurasian Face : Blacksmith Books, a publishing house in Hong Kong, is behind The Eurasian Face, a collection of photographs by Kirsteen Zimmern. Below is an excerpt from the series:
Big in China: An adapted excerpt from Big In China: My Unlikely Adventures Raising A Family, Playing The Blues and Becoming A Star in China, just published this month. Author Alan Paul tells the story of arriving in Beijing as a trailing spouse, starting a blues band, raising kids and trying to make sense of China.
Pallavi Aiyar's Chinese Whiskers: Pallavi Aiyar's first novel, Chinese Whiskers, a modern fable set in contemporary Beijing, will be published in January 2011. Aiyar currently lives in Brussels where she writes about Europe for the Business Standard. Below she gives permissions for an excerpt.
Front Page of the Day
A different newspaper every weekday
From the Vault
Classic Danwei posts
+ Korean history doesn't fly on Chinese TV screens (2007.09): SARFT puts the kibbosh on Korean historical dramas.
+ Religion and government in an uneasy mix (2008.03): Phoenix Weekly (凤凰周刊) article from October, 2007, on government influence on religious practice in Tibet.
+ David Moser on Mao impersonators (2004.10): I first became aware of this phenomenon in 1992 when I turned on a Beijing TV variety show and was jolted by the sight of "Mao Zedong" and "Zhou Enlai" playing a game of ping pong. They both gave short, rousing speeches, and then were reverently interviewed by the emcee, who thanked them profusely for taking time off from their governmental duties to appear on the show.
Danwei Archives
Danwei Feeds
Via Feedsky rsschiclet2.png (on the mainland)
or Feedburner rsschiclet.gif (blocked in China)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Main feed: Main posts (FB has top links)
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Top Links: Links from the top bar
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Jobs: Want ads
rsschiclet2.png rsschiclet.gif Danwei Digest: Updated daily, 19:30