The second coming of Shanghai and Beijing based urban art festival JUE is just around the corner. This year, the festival features just shy of 100 events across 2 cities over a 17 day period, 12 – 29 March. The festival is a big step forward from year 1, and features music from a wide mix of Chinese and International artists, as well as art from all across the spectrum. Highlights (from our unbiased position):
MUSIC
1) 4AD’s eccentric singer songwriter St. Vincent
2) the launch of the quarterly “Crosstalk” initiative, for which organizers Split Works take bands that might not otherwise be able to from their city-of-residence to another Chinese city. For JUE, Hefei’s Omnipotent Youth Hotel, Guangzhou’s Yufeimen and Mongolian folk act Hanggai all travel to Shanghai, while Shanghai’s the Mushrooms make their first journey to the capital.
ART
BEIJING
1) Chairman Ca (one of the main artists behind the Maybe Mars imagery) exhibition at the D-22 JUE opening party on March 11.
2) Solo Show from illustrator Huang Kai @ Amelie Gallery. Huangkai uses a cool comic-booky style to depict street scenes and social realities of 1980’s China. here’s some of his stuff here:
SHANGHAI
1) a free introductory screenprinting workshop conducted by nini sum of idlebeats, in partnership with neochaedge. march 13 3-5 pm.
2) Solo exhibition from Beijing-based photographer Han Lei at m97 gallery. This is the first time he’s exhibited in Shanghai since 2004. His photos are pretty awesome.
[flickr-gallery mode=”photoset” photoset=”72157623544219760″]