Execution by Minjun
February 24, 2010 NY Times
BEIJING — Nearly two dozen artists protesting the forced demolition of their homes and studios marched through the ceremonial heart of the capital before the police intervened and prevented them from reaching Tiananmen Square, the artists said on Tuesday.
The protesters said they took to the streets on Monday after men swinging iron rods swarmed over a community of artists on the northern edge of the city that has been resisting redevelopment.
Wu Yuren, 39, a photographer and installation artist who was among those beaten early Monday morning, said six artists were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. He said the attackers, about 100 men wearing white face masks, had been dispatched by developers who have been seeking to evict the artists for a large-scale residential project.
“They didn’t say a single word,” Mr. Wu said. “They just started beating us.”
One of those beaten, Satoshi Iwama, said he received five stitches for a blow to the head.
Although protests against forced evictions have become increasingly common in China, the aggrieved rarely succeed in venting their complaints on Chang’an Avenue, the heavily policed artery that passes in front of the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and Zhongnanhai, the residential compound of China’s top leaders.
Ai Weiwei, an artist and dissident who joined the demonstration, sent out a spate of Twitter messages detailing the march, which he said made it only about 500 meters before the police arrived.
“It was instinctive,” he said of the decision to take to the street. “We made a lot of noise, and I think we had a big impact.”
It is unclear whether the protest will alter the course of development that threatens at least 10 “artist villages,” the name given to clusters of live-work studios on the fringes of the city that house as many as 1,000 painters, sculptors and performance artists.
For Zheng Yang and 008, two adjacent art districts that were the scene of the melee, it may be too late. In November, the developer cut off electricity and water, and most buildings have already been destroyed.
Xiao Ge, a curator who helped organize a roving performance last month to draw attention to the evictions, said the developers gave most tenants a week to move out.
Many artists are furious because they were lured there with long-term leases — some upward of 20 years — and encouraged to invest their life savings in renovations. Gao Qiang, a furniture designer who moved to Zheng Yang last August, said he spent $11,764 fixing up his studio after he was given a three-year lease. Although he is angry that he will lose most of his investment, he and other artists say they are most concerned about bullying from developers and, at best, the apathy from the authorities.
“It is not an issue of money, it is an issue of dignity,” said Mr. Gao, 38, who said that the police did not arrive until more than an hour after the attack began. He added that the police told the artists they would provide better security and try to reconnect severed utilities.
The police declined to comment on Tuesday.
The fight over the future of Beijing’s artist villages come at a time of soaring real estate values and a spate of ugly scuffles over instances of land expropriation, several of which have led to the suicides of those facing eviction. Widely publicized in the media, the suicides have helped prompt the government to consider modifying the nation’s urban redevelopment regulations.
Even if the proposed reforms, which would provide market-rate compensation for property owners and outlaw coercive evictions, are adopted, it is unlikely they will help Beijing’s artists. Most of the artists live in officially designated rural areas, which are not covered by the measures.
Berenice Angremy, who has been a curator and art consultant in Beijing for the past eight years, said the repeated dislocations have been devastating to artists, both financially and psychologically.
“The government is trying to make Beijing a great cultural city, but without artists, it’s not going to happen,” she said.
