49 days left to the final kick out date on May 20. The count down started. The community met today to be SHOT for the catalog that will be publish together with the last 696 group exhibition on April 30 2011. 

新信息来自3月2日下午696组委会的第二次会议，
News from the second  696 committee meeting at the afternoon on March 2，

696群展终于定下在4月30日。来自上海美术馆的策展人被邀请担任本次策展。会议上，她讲述希望用“绿野仙踪”的童话故事作为696的隐喻和线索去连接存在在696的艺术家们和空间。
The 696 big show is finally fixed to be on April 30. Shanghai Art Museum curator Xiang Li Ping is invited to curate the show. At the meeting, she told her idea of using the story of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' as a metaphor to chain and connect every artists and spaces in 696.

此外，我们听说届时更多有意思的人会参与进来，比如香港的<MILK>杂志，以及一些音乐剧演员。
We are also hearing more cool people are getting involved such as  HK magazine <MILK> and a group of Opera performers.

Below is the latest article about 696 situation on THE ART NEWSPAPER. The writer is our 696 residence artist Chris Gill.

下文是关于696现状最近的新闻报道全文，刊登于THE ART NEWSPAPER。文章作者是696的艺术家李云飞。

Time running out for Shanghai artists’ colony

The occupants of Weihai Road 696 face the end of their leases and their cheap rents

SHANGHAI. Following the demolition of Ai Weiwei’s Shanghai studio in the city’s outskirts, other artists in the city are also facing the loss of their spaces. An old factory in downtown Shanghai, which has survived for more than four years as a dissident artist colony, and is only a few hundred meters from Shanghai’s main luxury fashion street Nanjing Road, which hosts the Louis Vuitton China flagship store, Prada and numerous other big-name brands, now faces its final shutdown as the local government has moved in to evict the tenants of its 72 sub-divisions.

The colony, known by its address “Weihai Road 696” has become a cornerstone of the less commercial, avant garde art scene in Shanghai. The space has an ever evolving blend of tenants, a mix of numerous professions from the more traditional painters, sculptors, photographers and print makers, to fashion designers, animators, documentary makers, performance artists, theatre practitioners, and even a Chinese cooking school. There are also a handful of experimental galleries, such as AroundSpace, Stageback and Dohjida from Kyoto, Japan.

Despite some local and foreign media coverage of the expected evictions, there has been no discernible effect on local government officials. A Chinese artist, a long term resident in Shanghai’s other noted art zone, M50, said that that area also faced demolition in its early days: “All the artists used their connections. We even found the retired teachers of all those government officials, the reform and development office and so on, and [we] called them up and shouted at them, that was how we survived.” However, as Weihai Road 696 is mostly occupied by artists from outside Shanghai, they do not have the local connections to mount such a campaign.

There are many rumours as to what the authorities plan for the space, and the adjoining block of old, red-brick lanes. It may be that the area will be redeveloped into a gentrified tourist spot, like Xintiandi, or will be turned into expensive architect studios, or simply become office space, similar to Shanghai’s other “creative zones”.

“There are 31 creative zones in Shanghai and not a single one suits me,” resident artist Ma Liang said. His Weihai Road studio was recreated in the Shanghai Art Museum for the recent Shanghai Biennale. Rents in the creative zones, usually in outlying areas, are around 1$ per meter per day, compared to 20 cents per meter per day at the Weihai road site.

In the adjoining lanes, local officials send in security squads and officials to silently stare at tenants and visitors. The owner of a small coffee shop in the lanes said Chen Guan (“City officer”, a lower-ranking member of the security police) were regularly coming into his shop to stare at his customers “until they become uncomfortable and leave”.

There are concerns that once the tenant leases expire in March there will be trouble. “There are three groups,” one artist, a printmaker, explained. “Those who will die before they leave, those who don’t know what to do, and those who are already leaving.”

German artist Rolf Kluenter added: “Shanghai will lose its heart when this place closes, doesn’t Shanghai want a heart?”

部分翻译，

关于政府下一步规划有各种猜测。一种说法是这个区域很可能重新发展成一个中产阶级旅游景点，类似新天地。或者，它会被改造成昂贵的建筑设计公司和类似的工作空间，一如上海其它的“创意园区”。

⋯⋯

在相连的小巷子，当地官员派遣一些监察人员静默地注视租户和游客。巷子里一家小咖啡店的店主说，城管会经常性地进入他的咖啡店盯着他的顾客们，直至大家感到不愉快而纷纷离开。

⋯⋯

德国艺术家Rolf Kluenter评论：“上海会丢失它的心如果这里消失。难道上海不想要它的心了吗？”

（翻译 毓文）

To read the articles, please click on the red title. 阅读全文，请点击红色标题。

Shape of the city: Weihai 696  对城市形态：威海路696

696 Weihai Lu - again  再一次报道威海路696

Thanks to our 696 neighbour Zoojoo for releasing such a cool small art magazine <MICRO> which publishes every weeks!

感谢我们696邻居Zoojoo出版这样一个艺术小册《微》。6周一次更新。

以下是创刊意旨，

万物皆微

一个关于“艺术”及其“外延”方面的纸媒介，手掌书，希望和商业化的主流艺术媒体有一定差距，保持自己的独立性。
简单，轻便，非常的小巧，因为纸张媒体在网络媒体和移动终端的双重夹击下已经日薄西山了。更希望体现一种在网络时代的“BLOG”"SNS"化的文本和图片。
定位：
别的艺术类杂志不做或不够彻底的，我们可以做。比如对于先锋、敏感的话题，对于太温和的批评界，可以用稍激进的方式做艺术批评。无论从发行到渠道到影响力，我们都无法做到阵地战。所以一个独特的姿态是如此的重要。
 
基本原则：
1 微小，每一期是如此微不足道，只有通过时间的流逝，才能看出杂志的可贵的地方
2 简单，可丢弃。
3 减少支出，大幅的降低成本，共享所有出资人的资源和能力
4 不一定探讨严肃艺术（私人摄影，涂鸦，梦呓，各种胡言乱语应都在可能的组稿范围），不写人情稿
5 微所坚持的最重要的独立评论精神要体现在：文章不攀附任何一个画廊或艺术机构，即便日后他们可能赞助或登广告。
6 多元观点，跨国界，凌乱，自相矛盾，多语言，笨拙和矫健都可以并存

Below is our <MICRO> Weltschmerz Page. 以下是我们在<微>Weltschmerz故事。

For more information, please click here.

更多信息，可以点击这里。