Evicted Artists Protest After Attack in Beijing
Du Bin for The New York Times
Fro left, Liu Wei, Liu Yi, Wu Yuren, Zhang Jun and Sun Yuan are among the artists protesting the demolition of their homes and studios in the northern part of Beijing.
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: February 23, 2010
Sign In to E-Mail

Print


Reprints

Share
Close
LinkedinDiggFacebookMixxMySpaceYahoo! BuzzPermalink. 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 Tuesday.

The protesters said they decided to take to the streets on Monday hours after scores of masked men swinging iron rods swarmed over their community on the northern edge of the city, which has been resisting redevelopment.

Wu Yuren, 39, a photographer and installation artist who was among those who were attacked, said six artists were sent to the hospital with minor injuries. He said the attackers, about 100 men wearing white face masks, had been sent by developers who wanted to clear the area for a large-scale residential project.

“They didn’t say a single word,” Mr. Wu said. “They just started beating us.” The police, he added, did not arrive for an hour and then sat in their patrol car until the attackers fled.

Another of those beaten, Satoshi Iwama, said he received five stitches after 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 yards before the police intervened.

“It was instinctive,” he said of the decision to protest. “We made a lot of noise, and I think we had a big impact.”

It is unclear whether the protest will force any action against the masked attackers or alter the course of development that threatens at least 10 clusters of studios where artists live and work on the fringes of the city. The clusters, called “artist villages,” house as many as 1,000 painters, sculptors and performance artists.

For two adjacent art districts that were the scene of the early morning protest, known as Zheng Yang and 008, it may be too late. In November, the developer cut off electricity and water, and most of the 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 to the villages with long-term leases — some for nearly 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 almost $12,000 to fix up his studio after he was given a three-year lease. Although he is angry that he will lose most of his investment, he said he is most concerned about the bullying from developers.

“It is not an issue of money, it is an issue of dignity,” said Mr. Gao, 38. He added that on Tuesday, the police told the artists that they would provide better security and try to reconnect severed utilities.

The police declined to comment.

The fight over the future of Beijing’s artist villages coincides with soaring real estate values and ugly scuffles over 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 that they will help Beijing’s artists. Many 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 had 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.


Zhang Jing contributed research.

Correction: An earlier version of this article's headline referred incorrectly to the police's role in attacks on an artists' community on the northern edge of Beijing. As the article made clear, the artists said that they were beaten by masked men and that the police did not intervene to stop them; the artists did not say they were beaten by the police.