The park is packed with half of Changchun-Wasai!!!
Ryan saying goodbye to his sculpture...get a room.
Tamara and Marko from Belgrade Serbia and his stone sculpture.
Twins in China
9/07/08 Sunday
The Conference was held at the Hotel and had a full schedule of guest speakers who came from all corners of the globe. The speakers from visiting countries tended to touch on non-controversial topics, like the positive direction of pubic art or historical background on the organizations they were representing. Although meaty historically, they seemed to stop sort of addressing the current trends and dodged addressing problems, solutions or what might be a means to resolving them. The Chinese speakers on the other hand tackled more relevant topics specific to China, identifying specific problems they face while trying to place sculpture in public spaces. One topic engage was directed toward a problem recognized, politicians who try to ingratiate themselves in the public eye by placing junk sculpture in road medians and intersections, highly visible locations. Many of these sculptures were nothing more than giant 3-D logos of companies who support these politicians. I thought this to be very gutsy of these professors and as far as I know, none were hauled away and certainly none were stopped from speaking their minds on the subjects. This was so unlike what I expected and really quite the reverse, those visiting, walked on eggs so to speak, and those supposedly repressed speaking openly. China is truly opening it’s doors and minds.
The day became really fun at lunch when Ryan and I saw Marko’s pictures of the Sculpture Park during his morning visit. It was filled with people, the masses had turned out for a Sunday at the park. Conference-shmonference, we were going to the park and meet the people of China. We piled in the taxi with our interpreters…it was unfreakingbelievable when we arrived, it was packed, standing room only (ok, but you could not run through the crowds). This was the most people we had ever seen in the park at one time, now we understood why the sidewalks were so big. After taking some pictures, I stood between the “twins” and smiled for the camera, shaking hands with thousands of friendly people, all wanting a picture…with the artist. It was truly fun, Chun Hua had to explain the “meaning” many times and really earned her keep that day. (she took the pics…Movie too)
Closing Dinner and party to come!
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