Comments on: ITS A SMALL SMALL WORLD http://www.kuuworld.com/2009/05/its-a-small-small-world/ Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:47:06 +0900 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: Peter http://www.kuuworld.com/2009/05/its-a-small-small-world/comment-page-1/#comment-69 Peter Tue, 21 Jul 2009 13:59:57 +0000 http://www.kuuworld.com/?p=1371#comment-69 We spent an afternoon at an artists village near Shenzhen in May. It was a village that grew famous as a center of print-making. A wonderful new printmaking center was built on the village outskirts to house visiting artists, and domestic printmakers. Of course, then, all the villagers were moved out...and all artists were shuttled to a nearby, newly empty village, conveniently roped off with yellow tape. Every house seems now sterilized and stocked from a style book which, in addition to being empty except for a series of endlessly similar, commercially acceptable prints on all walls, demands one or two bored women sitting on a wooden sofa, and new age music playing on a plastic stereo. It wans't until the very edge of the village that we came across the rough and cluttered studio of a famous 60s era printmaker, and a collection of 60 years of his powerful images of people on the fringe of revolution. It was the only house opened in this short row of locked and shuttered houses. Apparently the village improvements haven't made it to this corner of the village yet. Peter We spent an afternoon at an artists village near Shenzhen in May. It was a village that grew famous as a center of print-making. A wonderful new printmaking center was built on the village outskirts to house visiting artists, and domestic printmakers.

Of course, then, all the villagers were moved out…and all artists were shuttled to a nearby, newly empty village, conveniently roped off with yellow tape.

Every house seems now sterilized and stocked from a style book which, in addition to being empty except for a series of endlessly similar, commercially acceptable prints on all walls, demands one or two bored women sitting on a wooden sofa, and new age music playing on a plastic stereo.

It wans’t until the very edge of the village that we came across the rough and cluttered studio of a famous 60s era printmaker, and a collection of 60 years of his powerful images of people on the fringe of revolution. It was the only house opened in this short row of locked and shuttered houses. Apparently the village improvements haven’t made it to this corner of the village yet.

Peter

]]>