St. Louis, Missouri, USA

Poster for Red Memory at Yi Gallery

BEIJING, China – Chinese artists clearly have a lot of past to exorcize, so somehow it’s fitting that a neighborhood of former East German-built munitions plants in northeastern Beijing is the place they’re doing it. Whereas tanks and Maoist slogans once filled this enclave, now it’s art that’s creating waves.

Like the rest of Beijing, the 798 Art Zone is massive, covering over 20 city blocks. The dominant style is contemporary, but works here go from traditional Chinese to outre works by world-renowned artists from Europe and the Americas, and tchotchkes inspired by traditional Chinese iconography (Chinese opera mask bottle openers) and Japanese anime. But if there’s one motif you see over and over, it’s riffs on Mao-Era art. The difference: instead of ruddy, fresh-faced, happy workers, the characters are puffy and ghostly, as if sculpted by Botero and styled by Tim Burton. Maybe it’s out of nostalgia, maybe it’s nervous laughter over an era that’s not completely over, but again, clearly there’s lots to exorcise.

798 Space is one of the largest, under soaring vaulted ceilings where once tanks were manufactured – and Maoist slogans still line the ceilings, painted red, naturally; one in another gallery reads “Chairman Mao is our red eastern sun.” Long March is another warehouse of a space with giant galleries for large-form art.  

798 Space

Long March Space

Postcard Art at 798 Brother Camp

But most of the spaces are a lot more intimate, like 798 Brother Camp. The artist/owners aren’t actual brothers (they’re cousins, Liu Hao Wei and Zhu Si Ning), but “camp” is apt in both senses of the word. Down an alley and set up like a squatter’s den, it sells the cousins’ creations like posters and postcards recreating group portraits of expressionless military cadres from China’s not so recent past using expressionless GI Joe and Star Wars action figures, while  the Beatles “All You Need is Love” and “Yellow Submarine” fill the halls of faded brick and concrete. Inexpensive souvenirs here include bottle openers like Chinese opera masks and tiny black ceramic whistles brightly painted like animals of the Chinese zodiac.

At the highly regarded Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery was an exhibition called “Don’t Think Too Much,” of stainless steel signage by Ko Siu Lan, with hard-hitting slogans which the gallery notes call “a visual, mental, physical interaction with the viewer.” “Don’t think too much” is both the show’s motto and a way of looking at the work - probably best given the content of the signs:

Plastic Tree 8 by Pascal Marthine Tayou

Galleria Continua has exhibited big-name world-class artists including Anish Kappor, Daniel Buren, Ai Wei Wei, Cao Fei and Antony Gormley. Today the atrium was filled with Plastic Tree 8 by Pascal Marthine Tayou – a bare tree covered with with hundreds of colorful plastic bags; the only real greenery was the potted plants on the floor below. 

Shadow puppets

Amid all the galleries are tiny shops selling t-shirts and tin cups coated with enameled slogans, painted canvas shoulder bags, silk and tie-dyed scarves, fancy dresses, furniture and furnishings, books about art and architecture in myriad languages, Obama logos almost as plentiful as Chairman Mao logos, and, at the simply named Discount Shop for Art Books, shadow puppets that look like they’re made of plastic but are actually brightly colored donkey hide, from Shaanxi province. Most prices are very reasonable, making 798 a great place to pick up cheap and meaningful gifts.

In this shopping-mad country, the latest craze is the 100-yen store. For a little more than a dollar, savvy consumers can stock up on everything from origami paper to banana cases to milk carton-shaped erasers.

Read more at http://www.latimes.com/travel/la-tr-100yen-20100627,0,4323842.story

Each summer for nearly 25 years, the Los Angeles Conservancy has held screenings of classic films in classic theaters in the city’s Downtown core. For much of the city’s history, Downtown was LA: hub of business, haberdasheries, jewelers, food and flower markets and – most relevant here – 2,000-seat movie palaces. In the second half of the 20th Century, sprawl made Downtown into a ghost town at night, but as Angelenos tire of car culture and new Downtown restaurants, night spots and galleries seem to open every week (not to mention big-ticket draws like LA Live, the Music Center and Staples Center), people are moving in, and Downtown is bouncing back. This sold-out film series is just one indication.

Last week’s screening kicked off the Conservancy’s “Sixties Turn 50″ series with the 1967 musical, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. Before the screening, stars Robert Morse and Michelle Lee were interviewed by Matthew Weiner, whose TV series Mad Men is probably the decade’s most faithful recreation.

Morse and Lee were charmers both on screen and off, and the movie was equally adorable. But if you’re there just for the movie, you’re missing out. Half the fun of these screenings is exploring the theaters themselves. It’s easy to imagine men in trim suits suits and narrow ties and women in bouffants and candy-colored cocktail dresses (some audience members dressed the part) going out to smoke a Lucky in the soaring lobby…

Los Angeles Theater - lobby

Los Angeles Theater - main stage

…beneath lush French-Baroque decorations.

Los Angeles Theater - detail

Last Remaining Seats even offered an opportunity Hal and Muffy wouldn’t have been offered – and would probably have sniffed at: visiting the vintage projection booth. But modern-day moviegoers lined up to ascend a Chandleresque staircase from the upper balcony.

Los Angeles Theater - to the projection booth

Los Angeles Theater - projection booth

 For more information, visit http://www.laconservancy.org/remaining/

Cheonggyecheon Creek in Downtown Seoul

Life in Seoul is so relentlessly busy that it’s easy to forget that only 30 miles away lies one of the world’s most dangerous places, the demilitarized zone between the two Koreas. But take the Freedom Highway north, and the high-rises give way to more of what you’d expect: razor wire, lookout posts and Ray-Banned South Korean soldiers.

Still, a surprise awaits off the highway about five kilometers from the DMZ, where the hilly, verdant landscape opens up on a village of architect-designed homes and studios for artists. This is Heyri Art Valley, whose denizens include several dozen of the nation’s most prominent photographers, artists, composers and intellectuals. The US equivalent would be as if Cy Twombly, Jeff Koons, Annie Leibovitz, John Williams and a Malcolm Gladwell or two had all bought property in a village in northern Montana and hired Frank Gehry and Thom Mayne to design their spaces.

Bae Bien-U in his home-studio, Heyri Art Valley

Among the first to locate here was Bae Bien-u, one of Asia’s most noted photographers for his lush black & white images of gnarled pines in Gyeongju, Korea’s ancient capital. Bae first set eyes on Heyri in 2000, when most of the village still was in the planning stages. “As a landscape photographer, I fell in love with it,” he says. Now he splits his time between Seoul and here.

Other artists’ spaces include galleries of Park Yuna’s pottery and works of refurbished clothing, and the Pink House, where Ma Sook Hyun shows off his medium, Korean wildflowers in elemental settings of stones, vases and architecture. 

Book House, Heyri Art Valley

A number of important Korean galleries, such as Seoul’s Keumsan Gallery, have set up shop in Heyri. Hwang Inyoung, perhaps the nation’s most beloved broadcaster, owns Camerata, where visitors can enjoy soft drinks and a rare indulgence in this busy country: time to relax listening to live or recorded music on a state-of-the-art sound system. 

There are also a cinema cafés and the Book House, a book shop, concert hall, exhibition space and organic French restaurant, built of Indonesian merbau wood and cast-in-place concrete. It all makes for a delightful day out from the capital.

Korean wildflowers at Pink House

But what of that tiny problem of south-pointing missiles and that funny-haired dictator to the north? “Of course, everyone feels some insecurity over the distance from the border,” says Lee Sang, Heyri’s secretary general, “but from a security standpoint there’s no real difference between living in Seoul and living here.”

Perhaps the biggest perspective on cross-border tensions comes in the form of the Gyeonggi English Village, next door to Heyri, where students from all over South Korea come to learn English and the culture of English-speaking countries. No sane nation we know deliberately sends its children into a danger zone.

Fun fact: sumo wrestler Akebono was born in Hawaii as Chad Rowan but became a naturalized Japanese citizen.

Equal parts Old Japan and hyperfuture, Tokyo is a traveler’s dream. Though the city has $700-a-night (and up) hotel rooms, it can also be a bargain. Many of the best sights are free.

Read more at: http://www.calif.aaa.com/westways/2010-may/Pages/out-and-about.aspx

That lumbering translated to perhaps the smoothest takeoff I’ve ever experienced; I didn’t notice the typical whoosh as we left the ground. Part of that could have been the lack of noise – the A380 was designed for 50% less interior noise than other jets, so the lack of rumble may have made it seem smoother too. The Fasten Seat Belt sign went off mere moments into the sky.

The A380 debuted in 2007 (2008 for Qantas), but it still retains some of the novelty that reminded me of when flying was fun. I was hardly the only one snapping photos on this flight. The jet-setting couple across the aisle from me in business class had matching iPads. The movie screen rose from a console between the business class seats at the touch of a button, and videos included Lonely Planet guides to destinations including my work on Tokyo and LA (good on us!). I also attribute the joviality to Qantas, whose crews I’ve always found to be as sunny as all Australia. Next to the security instructions in the seat pocket: the Qantas Inflight Guide to Wine.

Not long after takeoff for this night flight, the crew came through offering comfy gray pajamas with the Qantas “flying kangaroo” logo. These come in medium-large and large-extra large – I guess Australians are big people – and a little amenity case designed by Marc Newsom.

Other neat design touches:

- A cigar-shaped reading light behind the seat and a little pocket customized to hold water bottles.

- Touch-controls for seat adjustments, including custom programs for sitting straight up, mealtime or lying mostly or all-the-way flat.

- Sleek galleys and contemporary nesting cutlery.

- Tray tables folded out from and back into their hiding places as if fresh with silicone.

It was also really great just to be able to sleep. I’m a turbulence wuss, but perhaps the size of the plane made any turbulence seem less severe. Or maybe it was the quarter of an Ambien.

Mid-way through the flight, it hit me how remarkable it was that everything functioned as it was supposed to, nothing was broken, smelly or caked with grime, and nobody was surly, grumpy or over it. It’s a sad commentary on the curent state of the airline industry that this counts as success. But if it puts the fun being back in flying, I’m all for it.

Chopstick Rest

Sushi Etiquette 101:

Andy is interviewed by the Los Angeles Examiner and gives a lesson in how to eat sushi, complete with slide show! http://www.examiner.com/x-14293-Burbank-Food-Examiner~y2010m3d28-Sushi-etiquette-101