Art galleries – where we are trained to think that contemporary art should exist.
With the notable exception of street art, it has become almost impossible to think about the variety of artworks made today as existing anywhere beyond their pristine white walls, bright zenithal lights and eerily still atmosphere.
Yet, art galleries are not every artist’s channel of choice to showcase their work. Instead, some argue that art can be consumed in a dark, small and stuffy space – whatever is necessary to reduce the distance between artwork and audience. Beijing artists are no exception, and collectives have long been colonizing unusual spaces to show off their works. Like anonymous apartments in residential blocks or, as is the case with our latest finding, a room in a gray office building.
PPPP uses these words to explain where to find their anonymous two-room exhibition space, tucked on the third floor of a boring, gray business-purpose condo, on the corner of an equally ordinary courtyard in one of Caochangdi art district’s quieter roads.
Inconvenient, you might think – even sketchy – but the hunt is intentional. And most importantly, the drab location serves to make a point: Art can change seemingly unremarkable spaces, infusing them with new and unexpected objects or ideas.
On the day we visit, this small collective-run space is hosting an exhibition called Virtual Space, featuring works from artists who reflect on the impact of new technologies on our everyday lives. Inside PPPP, psychedelic computer-generated landscapes and abstract video pieces are projected on the walls and through ‘70s TV sets.
Sometimes quirky, sometimes spooky, the artworks make sense here, in any room of any office building, and that’s because our lives are changed every day in places like this, for better or worse, by our uber-connected phones and laptops.
A departure from the sometimes elitist and uptight white space of art galleries, PPPP is surely unorthodox, reminding us of the original power of art.
[Images via Edoardo Donati Fogliazza/That’s]
See a listing for PPPP
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