Our photo theme this week: Remaking Baitasi. Baitasi is a monument in west-central Beijing, named after the Yuan Dynasty White Stupa Temple. In recent years, it’s also become a site of Beijing Design Week, an annual, city-wide program showcasing leading ideas in urban design. Some background on Baitasi and its recent evolution into a BJDW “core area” here.
Taking advantage of the increased foot traffic brought by Beijing Design Week, a new mutli-purpose arts space in Baitasi called White Light White Temple hosted a soft opening during the proceedings. Very soft, and very rough. The space was all exposed concrete and naked lightbulbs illuminating an exhibition of artworks made by some key members of Beijing’s music scene: ink illustrations by Yang Fan of seminal bands Hang on the Box and Ourself Beside Me, polaroids by Carsick Cars frontman Zhang Shouwang, and Rauschbergian assemblages by artist-provocateur Chairman Ca.
The fledgling space’s BJDW soft open also included a program of live music performances from some leading lights of the city’s underground experimental music scene. Pictured here are Chui Wan singer Yan Yulong and audio/visual artist Sheng Jie performing Yan’s minimalist composition “Oppose,” in which they slowly rotated around the room over the course of half an hour, each droning on the single note indicated on the music stand in front of them, creating a slowly evolving cascade of harmonies and dissonances over time.
