HD-BJ and other news

Hey Everyone,
Here's a little update on what I've been up to these days:

Last week I made a spontaneous visit to Beijing to see Weiwei again. We took in all the major sights in a swoop of what felt like only three days: Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, Great Wall, 798, Summer Palace, and, of course, the Fake Markets.
Here are some impressions:

At the 798 artsy place

At the Forbidden City

Who's the great chairman now?

In the Forbidden City

So, 798 is pretty cool. Of course it's commercialized with all the tourists and whatnot, but if you spend some time looking around there really are some nice exhibitions to see (and it's all for free, too!). It seems to also be a favored location for events, as there was a big Mercedes-sponsored fashion show going on when we were there, and I saw some of the best dressed mainlanders in all of my years watching Chinese people so far.

Tiananmen and the Forbidden City are, of course, the places everyone goes to see when they're in Beijing. Swarms of tourists from the provinces and overseas alike, and rightly so. The palace complex sits smack in the middle of the city and is just huge. I highly recommend also heading up to Jingshan Park, which is right behind the Forbidden City, and probably has one of the best views in all of Beijing. From there you can also sneak a peek into enigmatic Zhongnanhai, although it's not nearly as interesting as I imagines (just the lakes and some boring buildings, no limousines, helicopters, or tanks).

Great Wall 1

Great Wall 2 (I appear somewhat enervated)

Great Wall 3

Great Wall 4 (I told Weiwei to make a patriotic gesture, expressing her love for the fatherland. This is what came out.)

Now, of course one also visits the Wall. Since I wasn't in the mood for a 4-hour bus ride, we opted to head to Badaling, which is the part of the wall closest to Beijing (which, again, was reflected in the hordes of people present). From a tourist center in the middle you can hike on the wall for about a half hour in either direction, until you hit the blocked-off section. Certainly disappointing. It's probably wiser to spend some more time on the bus and make a day trip of seeing the 'wild wall', with all the hiking and climbing the heart desires. Nevertheless, imposing architectural & logistical achievement, that wall.

Summer Palace (This was supposed to look like we're the same height. I was to lazy to crop the picture.)

Lastly, the summer palace. It's in the suburbs of Beijing and easy to reach by subway. We took a stroll around the lake but didn't go inside the temple thingy (extra 15RMB, pah!).  Due to the early spring, there was already some blooming and flowering going on, and I imagine it's even prettier in the summer.

What else did we do?
Lots of shopping (the fake markets are kind of sucky compared to Shanghai; apparently the government made a huge clean-up effort for the Olympics or so, and everything is much too tame).
A Hutong tour (do yourself a favor and don't go to the advertised places - it's just a Starbucks next to a hostel/bar/café next to a Starbucks. We just took a walk around where we were staying and stumbled upon the quaintest old-school hutong, tucked away between the skyscrapers).
Eating (mostly fancy Japanese stuff, although it's much more expensive than in Shanghai, presumably  because there are less Japanese in Beijing. Other than that, mostly classic Chinese, but we also went to check out the famed South German Bakery, which serves acceptable cakes and is the only place in the city where there's more foreigners than Chinese - all the pasty-faced Germans go there after work to get there dose of no-nonsense, no-fluff German bread). 
Anyways, it was good to see Weiwei again, and to also finally meet her sister in person.

 In less recent news: I finished my bachelor's last fall and I'm now doing my master's (still Heidelberg, still physics). I also just started working part-time as a software engineer at this place. So far it's really interesting and I'm learning a lot.
After four and a half years (with breaks) I'll be moving out of INF 133 at the end of this month. Not to worry, though, I'm not going far, moving to bourgeois Neuenheim. Come visit me at my new place some time!

If you've come this far: Thanks for reading! Drop me a message if we haven't spoken in a long time!
Best
Dennis.

HD-KS: A dOCUMENTA (13) Review

Hey Everyone,
Everything's going swell so far in Germany. Here's a little update/info post which gives you my take on Germany's ( and maybe the world's ) most prominent exhibition of contemporary art, the documenta, this year in its 13th incarnation.
Please note, this little guide is absolutely reflective of my own opinion and I don't claim a lot of knowledge about the scene ( + I didn't feel like reading 'The Guidebook', so much ). I'm only presenting some of my personal likes & dislikes. For a more thorough overview & walkthrough for those who might still decide to go themselves, I highly recommend the ArtOrbit illustrated guide, which gives a nice summary of all the major venues.
Thanks go to my aunt for letting us crash at her house!

We arrived in Kassel on thursday around noon by car. Having private accomodations makes things a little easier, but even if you plan on arriving by train getting around and finding your way should be no problem at all. The city is in its five-yearly documania ( or dOCUMANIA, this time? ) and there are signs, arrows, info centers and helpful passers-by all over. That way, in the tram en route to the city center we got our first insider tip: the Huguenot House ( Friedrichstraße 25 ). This, uhm, project consists of a formerly abandoned house redecorated & refurbished by Theaster Gates:

The Huguenot House's entrance behind yours truly

From the looks of it, the house is being used as shared living quarters, presumably to accomodate the people helping with the redesign and maybe the performers of Tino Sehgal's piece, which was housed in a large metal shed next to the house: Except for some very dim lighting the inside is completely dark. Upon entering one is greeted by an a-capella gust of voices producing various beatbox-ish sound-effects as well as the occasional vocal piece ( I unfortunately missed their rendition of 'Good Vibrations' ). After one's eyes get used to the dark, one is surprised to find out that around 90% of the people in the well-populated room are actually perfomers with single visitors stumbling inbetween. The Huguenot House seemed a little over-hyped in light of what is actually offered. I guess it's really more of a hot-spot for the art crowd to hang out after closing time than a can't-miss for visitor Joe Everyman.
After a peek into Obere Karlsstr. 14 ( Francis Alys -  two rooms of tiny pictures of what resembles TV test-screens, meh. The man has done way more interesting things ), we hit up one of the major venues: Neue Galerie, featuring one of this year's flagship pieces, Geoffrey Farmer's ensemble of Life Magazine cutouts glued onto little bamboo sticks - one of the many projects for which one has to stand in line to see it. What's easiest to appreciate about it, is probably the amount of tedious work that went into making it.

Neue Galerie - outside

The cutout mashup

Cutouts - detail

Next up was the documenta-Halle; the audience's darling here were Thomas Bayrle's sawn up combustion engines. Attached electric motors set the pistons in motion, displaying the full wobbling, clockwork-like elegance of an 8-cylinder radial aircraft engine. I wouldn't call them readymades - the artist's setup opens a ( usually hidden ) perspective on the motion of everyday machinery which here appears fluent and organic.

View into the documenta-Halle

cut-up engine - engineered aesthetics?

We topped of the day with a stroll through the Karlsaue park. The location is beautiful in the late afternoon of a sunny day. The archetypal baroque landscaping is sprinkled with classicist knick-knacks and left-overs from 5 decades of documentas as well as some current installations, such as Sam Durant's gallow-playground and Anna Maria Maiolino's clay sausage house.

On friday we made an early start to check out the Hauptbahnhof location. When it comes to real can't-misses - this is it, definitely my favorite venue. It's worth coming in before 10am, to get a chance to take part in Cardiff & Miller's video walk. The concept is simple but effective - the visitor gets an iPod which leads him on a guided tour of the station and its history. Not overwhelming, but a neat idea. It's recommended to show up either early ( 9.45ish ) or around 5-6pm to get one of the 60 iPods without having to wait for too long. Also located in the Hauptbahnhof area is Epaminonda & Cramer's house. This would probably be my favorite project this year, well worth the little wait out front. While not overly intellectual, it still takes some time to access and sure has to it the kind of vibe which I'm looking to experience in a contemporary art exhibition.

Waiting for Epaminonda/Cramer

Waiting for Cardiff/Miller

Inside Epaminonda/Cramer

Istvan Csakany's wooden workshop

 The Hauptbahnhof's Northern Wing [sic!] offers Michael Portnoy's mud hill ( 'no touching, please' - it's a large pile of dirt, for crying out loud! ) and Clemens von Wedemeyer's three panel work camp movie set-up, which is really not bad if you have enough time to actually watch all three films.

Haegue Yang's window shutters w/ no windows

 Haegue Yang's automatic window-shutters were , uhm, interesting. We decided not to wait a half hour or so for William Kentridge's installation, puzzled over Lara Favaretto's trash mountains and caught the last two minutes of a performance of the Critical Art Ensemble ( still seemed pretty cool, though; they offer performances everyday at 12.00 o'clock sharp ). Due to time constraints we had to skip the South Wing and the Nachrichtenmeisterei. Go & see this if you can!

Favaretto's artsy trash

The exhibition's own bus line took us over to the Weinberg bunker - not worth putting on the safety helmet.

However:

Rojas - beams

Rojas - hollow tree stump

 Rojas - cat which died on account of a parasitic egg breaking through its underbelly

Rojas - church bells

Much cooler than the bunker are Adrian Villar Rojas' Weinbergterrassen. The fact that his outdoor sculptures have already suffered under the weather only adds to their particular presence. Great city views included when it's not raining!















The Fridericianum, traditionally the exhibition's main venue, didn't knock my socks off. The ground floor was dominated by Ryan Gander's easy breezes - breezing through mostly empty halls. Meh.
One cool thing: Anton Zeilinger's ( yes, the Anton Zeilinger ) quantum optics set-up. One of the few pieces that I thought I understood pretty well. Surprisingly hot with the crowd, too:

'Plain wave? Singlet state? Spontaneous Parametric Down-Conversion? Piece-a-cake!'

This is art now!

For those with a technical inclination, the Orangerie down by the Karlsaue also incorporates the Physikalisch-Astronomisches Kabinett, with some pretty neat 18th-century-nerd playthings.
To end it off some more non-descript pieces from the Fridericianum:

If you came all the way down here - thanks for reading. Drop me a little 'hi' here or on the book.

Best
 Dennis.

BTW: All picture credits to Weiwei!

Home

Hey Everyone,

I left China early last Monday morning, arrived in Frankfurt Monday night, and I've been in Heidelberg for two days. Everything went smooth, I had some close friends see me off at the airport in Shanghai and I had some close friends ( +mother ) pick me up here, which made me really happy.
So these were my 10 months. I didn't work that much, still learned a lot. They say you go to China in order to study the language in a natural environment, which wasn't really the case for me - most people I spent my time with were foreigners after all. I still made progress, I passed my HSK & my exams. The exposure to 'real' Chinese life fell a little short, but that's to be expected if one lives in a city like Shanghai. That's okay. Anyhow, I'm really glad I met all the people I met, they made my stay special and memorable. I don't know with how many of them I'll still be talking in 3 months, a year, ten years, but I hope it's not going to be too few. I don't want to give a long account of what I experienced in this year, much of it can be found just a couple of posts back. If you have the chance to go to China -  take it! No need to stay for a whole year, it's an exciting place to be even if only for a week or so.
Thank you everybody for reading, this concludes my China story ( for now! ).
Be in touch, people!

Bonus Post

Here are two little extras for my avid readers. One is the description of a school trip taken on May 27th, not to be taken all that seriously. The other is some photos from my ( second! ) trip to Yangzhou, to where my friend took me last weekend and let me stay with the family at their home. We had some great fun, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. Since I've gotten the question quite a bit recently: I'll be leaving Shanghai on Monday the 18th, and I'll be back to Heidelberg sometime within that week.

The school trip:
On an early morning in May, the sun already glaring down on us and setting the tone for a glorious day, our group of a dozen Confucius Institute Scholarship students set out for a forenoon of fun and adventure.
Following a one-hour bus ride, introduction round and gift trinkets included, we arrived at the first ( and foremost ) of our destinations: The Shikumen rice wine factory. Not only were we provided a tour of their Huangjiu museum und manufacturing facilities but we also had the opportunity to sample the company's fine products, and generously we did.
With this little treat sweetening our day, we went on to our second stop, scenic Fengjing oldtown, one of Shanghai's famed suburban recreational districts. As our tour guide pointed out us, Fengjing is famous beyond its borders for its quirky dialect as well as its exceedingly bright inhabitants. Nested among the living quarters and little shops that make up the traditional Chinese canal town are the two pearls of Fengjing; One is the domain of Ding Cong, nationwide known cartoonist and greatest son of Fengjing. His personal domicile and workshop are open to the public, his works on display. The inclined visitor can also take a tour of Ding Cong's personal slaughterhouse which provided him with his daily fix of pickled pork knuckle, a local specialty, which he required to be served with his every meal. The other is the renowned Museum of Mao Badges, an impressive collection of thousands of metal badges illustrating episodes of the life and doings of the Great Chairman. While curated with meticulous care and attention to detail, the original intended use and meaning of the badges did not become clear to this student. As a fun extra for the kids, presumably, the museum's courtyard featured a decomissioned howitzer gun as well as jet fighter plane flown by Mao Zedong himself.
After a typical Chinese famer's lunch, which included all-Chinese favorites such as chicken feet, bony fish and cold slices of the abovementioned pickled pork knuckle, we moved on to the highlight of our trip: the “Chinese Farmers' Paintings Village”, which offers a glimpse into the work of Chinese farmers-turned-painters, and gives the esteemed visitor a chance to familiarize himself with their colorful, often almost childlike joyful works depicting scenes of everyday village life and similar sujets encountered by the farmer-turned-painter. Our group was shown a variety of works by the different masters, all with their distinct yet inter-connected styles. No purchases were made.
This concluded our little excursion and most of our group seized the opportunity during the two-hour-trip home ( Shanghai late afternoon traffic-induced travel time multiplier: 2 ) to sleep of the last effects of the morning's rice wine degustation.

Dennis J. Roehner for SJTU/SIE
2012-06-09


The weekend vacation: