November 16, 2007
Some years back, a group of artists were hounded out of Beijing by authorities. Some went to Songzhuang village, a farming town an hour away. Now, that village is a boomtown –- based on the market for contemporary Chinese art. Communist officials drink beer with bohemians. Will the rising tide raise all the artists’ boats –- or capsize them? Jocelyn Ford goes to Songzhuang to find out.
Fang Fang, the art mogul behind Beijing’s Star Gallery, explains why China's young artists are a world apart from their counterparts in the West. Produced by Jocelyn Ford.
China’s government has a strategy of using “soft power” to improve the country’s image –- promoting the arts, building language schools abroad, and, of course, remaking Beijing itself for the 2008 Olympics. But it’s a strategy with some pitfalls. Kurt talks with Orville Schell, a journalist and scholar who directs the Asia Society Center on China-U.S. Relations.
"Drifter's Song" from Chen Xing's album New Ballads for Migrant Workers. (Guangdong Provincial Record Co. Ltd.)
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