Relax your jaw while reading this most ridiculous and non worthy piece of journalism THAT HAS EVER BEEN WRITTEN!

The response! To the western press and position about the procrastination of AiWeiWei.

The shocking thing is that THEY REALLY THINK LIKE THAT!

SOMETIMES I WANT TO BANG MY HEAD AGAINST A WAaaaaaaaaaaaaalL!!!

Law will not concede before maverick

• Source: Global Times
• [08:27 April 06 2011]
• Comments

Ai Weiwei, known as an avant-garde artist, was said to have been detained recently. Some Western governments and human rights institutions soon called for the immediate release of Ai Weiwei, claiming it to be China's "human rights deterioration" while regarding Ai Weiwei as "China's human rights fighter."

It is reckless collision against China's basic political framework and ignorance of China's judicial sovereignty to exaggerate a specific case in China and attack China with fierce comments before finding out the truth. The West's behavior aims at disrupting the attention of Chinese society and attempts to modify the value system of the Chinese people.

Ai Weiwei is an activist. As a maverick of Chinese society, he likes "surprising speech" and "surprising behavior." He also likes to do something ambiguous in law. On April 1, he went to Taiwan via Hong Kong. But it was reported his departure procedures were incomplete.

Ai Weiwei likes to do something "others dare not do." He has been close to the red line of Chinese law. Objectively speaking, Chinese society does not have much experience in dealing with such persons. However, as long as Ai Weiwei continuously marches forward, he will inevitably touch the red line one day.

In such a populous country as China, it is normal to have several people like Ai Weiwei. But it is also normal to control their behaviors by law. In China, it is impossible to have no persons like Ai Weiwei or no "red line" for them in law.

The West ignored the complexity of China's running judicial environment and the characteristics of Ai Weiwei's individual behavior. They simply described it as China's "human rights suppression."

"Human rights" have really become the paint of Western politicians and the media, with which they are wiping off the fact in this world.

"Human rights" are seen as incompatible things with China's great economic and social progress by the West. It is really a big joke. Chinese livelihood is developing, the public opinion no longer follows the same pattern all the time and "social justice" has been widely discussed. Can these be denied? The experience of Ai Weiwei and other mavericks cannot be placed on the same scale as China's human rights development and progress.

Ai Weiwei chooses to have a different attitude from ordinary people toward law. However, the law will not concede before "mavericks" just because of the Western media's criticism.

Ai Weiwei will be judged by history, but he will pay a price for his special choice, which is the same in any society. China as a whole is progressing and no one has power to make a nation try to adapt to his personal likes and dislikes, which is different from whether rights of the minority are respected.

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

Please read HERE for the full interview

      杂志<ArtClue>采访Susanne Junker片断（采访者Silvia Pintilie；毓文翻译）

    Susanne Junker - 性，艺术和中国绳索

      有些人认为她是令人震惊的；有些人视她为启示录。从展览到其间的情感，从幻想产物到艺术存在性格。一个模特，在她可见的美丽之后，去创造另一种可见去成为自己的作者自我引导与探索当下充满趣味的情境。
      Susanne Junker,stage候台BACK的创立者，她去组织却又拒绝被组织，她在逃脱被驯服的同时又让这种包含她存在的感情曝露无疑。Susanne Junker...触碰到一条绳索。

     阅读全文，请点击这里。

Whither 696 Weihai Lu?

By Lisa Movius

In Shanghai, the heart of the independent, grass-roots art community has centered on 696 Weihai Rd., a downtown compound of century-old warehouses. But a new owner threatens to shut it down.

Since 2006, the warehouses have been abuzz with over 70 low-budget galleries and artists’ studios, making and showing eclectic art in the complex’s maze of rooms. In late spring, an annual open-studio weekend typically draws hundreds of visitors. But in recent weeks, none of the artists have been able to renew leases extending past March.

“We don’t know what will happen after that, but we will probably be asked to go,” says Susanne Junker, who runs StageBack Gallery there. She and her neighbors were informed by the manager for the current landlord, the Jing’an Social Security Bureau, that the new owner — a subsidiary of the Jing’an District Government — acquired 696 Weihai as well as Jing’an Villas, an adjacent half block of old residential lane houses.

The current management company declined to comment on what company was taking over the property or what might happen to it.

According to artist and writer Chris Gill, the government recently erected a sign in front of the warehouses that says “This is a community of international and Chinese artists.”

“It is ironic that they would put up a marble plaque,” he says, “then kick us out.”

The occupants of 696 Weihai have dodged eviction rumors for several years now, as different developers bid on the property. Chief among those was Red Town, a state-owned enterprise that developed a flailing arts cluster across town.

“I knew it wouldn’t go on forever,” says Ms. Junker. “[696 Weihai] is important for us because it is a great location and affordable: 300 meters from [shopping thoroughfare] Nanjing Lu… if this were Manhattan, it’d be right next to Fifth Avenue.”

696 Weihai, the only creative district in downtown Shanghai that is not controlled by the government, is one of two big artists’ communes in the city. The other, 50 Moganshan Rd., is in the city’s northern outskirts, and is owned by the Shanghai Textile Group, a state-owned enterprise. But successive rent increases at M50, as it is better known, have driven out small galleries and all but the most successful artists. Commercial art shops and offices have taken their place. Other so-called “creative industry clusters” have been built in old factories by ShangTex or other state-owned enterprise landlords, but rents are priced beyond the means of most artists.

“I hope it won’t happen. It is such a shame, this is something grass-roots that brings the area something lively and down to earth,” says Chen Hanfeng, an artist who has a studio in 696. “I think, first, this building has such a long history….It gives people the feeling that Shanghai has a real history. If they renovate it, then that will be gone. Second…compared to Moganshan, [Weihai] is much more studio rather than gallery driven.”

“It is partly political, partly economic, and is how stupid bureaucracies work,” says Mr. Gill.

The occupants continue to hold out for news, and hope, about plans to redevelop 696 Weihai and Jing’an Villas. Says Mr. Gill: “They might kick us out, and then leave it empty for three years. It would be best for them to stagger it, and work with us….But there is no negotiation going on, they are…not talking.”

“I think at most we will get until June, but the project also will need a lot of money, and I hope we can stay until September,” says Chen Mingming, owner of Around Space Gallery at 696 Weihai.

The artists of 696 Weihai will put on a group show in February, similar to the weekend open-studio shows they put on every summer. “We hope it will create awareness,” says Ms. Junker.

For more information, please click here.