For the ones who think that Dashanzi has gone to high in pretentions and prices, there is a village outside of Beijing (45min by car) where hundreds of artist have their little exhibition or studio places…you might already have heard of Songhzuang Artist Village.Well I went there today.
I found a way to go with some google help and I found this address : http://www.artistvillagegallery.com/
It looked like I found the right place, the website says that there is only one gallery taken care of all these poor artists in the village. I did not take to much attention at the fact that the address on the contact page is not Songhzuang but Renzhuang village (next door). I phone an English speaking women to warn (as asked on-line) that we would come in the morning.We took a taxi (min 300RMB) and drove there, the Chinese address on the website was very clear and we got to the place without any problem. A lady came to open the door and asked us 20RMB per person to visit the place, we asked why, saying that it’s not even written on the website neither she told me on the phone, she answered that many people would come and disturb her to visit the gallery. I answered that if she wanted to be in peace, she should not open a gallery and we left.We met an artist in her studio not far away and she told us that the real village was Songzhuang and that the sign we saw on the highway (Songhzuang Artists Village) was the good sign to visit the artist village. She added that the women we met was just an art dealer trying to fool foreigners with her website.
In conclusion, if you want to go to Songhzuang, take the left lane of JingTong Highway(ShanHaiGuan direction)to the XiMaZhuang exit,drive ahead to BeiGuanHuanDao;then drive along the JingHa Highway and get out at SongZhuang Artist Village and just follow the signs.
There is the Sunshine Museum Artists with some other galleries in the area and the prices are reasonable.We especially liked the work of Zhang Bin, at Jartsspace in studio 8 of Sunshine Museum.
more paintings of Zhang Bin over there.
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