I went back to the new Park-19 today in daylight surrounded by the craziness of the Nantai markets. I’m looking for a space for the installation I will be doing here in May, and after a couple of hours walking through concrete dust, piles of wet cement and bricks, and dodging builders who are turning 8 floors of empty concrete warehouse into the next big Asian artist village, I think I’ve found it.
At the moment, it’s a long way from the lived-in art-saturated old Park-19 opposite Xiaogang Park, but between the two, it’s what I’ve been looking for in Guangzhou. I was told it’s been modelled on the cité internationale artists residences in Paris, and even though it’s a building site at the moment, it reminded me of the 台北國際藝術村 Taipei Artist Village.
The purpose of founding a new location:
The aim of establishment of the Park19 Art Space – Nantai Location is to attract more artists having divergent specialities, and to hold varied exchange activities. In this way, it is possible to build up a platform for artists and art lovers from China and all around the world to communicate and learn from each other. At the same time, the space is supposed to act as a showcase, which enables the society to understand artists and appreciate their artistic works. Via this space, art workers can carry out equal, free and deep-going communications, and healthy partnerships between local and international art organisations can also be achieved.
Park19 Art Space – Nantai Location will carry on the principle it always adheres to – to devote great effort to help young artists develop their art career, to provide a showplace of their talent, to offer exhibition space and professional organisational services for free to those young artists who lack economic capacity, to try to set up links between the artists’ works and the market as possible.
Park19 Art Space insists on connecting art to the society and the masses, and encourages more and more people to engage in art activities.
