Art District Research Articles

Art and the City: Contemporary Art Galleries Districts in Paris from the End of the 19th Century until Today

The space invested by contemporary art galleries is of utmost importance. Not only is it essential to have suitable premises, but they must also be in the right place: The physical address carries a lot of weight. The benefits to galleries of being concentrated in the same areas are twofold: They are close to their competitors, which means they are close to the art market, and thus, by their collective presence, can boost the market by encouraging collectors to go to the same places built up as art districts. Moreover, the district’s qualifying function comes about through the collective construction of this grouping of galleries from which it benefits. Today in Paris, it is the Marais neighborhood—a sector that started developing in the 1970s but even more in the 1980s and 1990s—that epitomizes the place to be for contemporary art galleries. The implantation of contemporary galleries in Paris clearly results from a historical process that led them from the 8th arrondissement to the Marais, stopping briefly at Saint-Germain-des-Prés (or the 6th arrondissement) mostly for small avant-garde structures. Studying the implantation—here in Paris—of contemporary art galleries over time illustrates the dynamics that gird the installation choices and also shows how alive the urban fabric is. Galleries enter the transformations of the urban fabric, and when they are numerous enough, they also participate directly in its development.

Exploring the Case Beijing 798 Arts District Demonstrates the Power of Cultural and Creative Industry

Introduction The success of the 798 Arts District stems from the grassroots movement initiated by the artists and non-profit institutes. They challenged the authorities, who intended to carry out the demolition of the 798 Arts District, to preserve the cultural heritage of that area and shift power to the people. The 798 Arts District can serve as a model of sustainability for other arts districts or redevelopment projects in urban areas.

Beijing 798 Arts District Demonstrates the Power of Cultural and Creative Industry

Abstract The success of the 798 Arts District stems from the grassroots movement initiated by the artists and non-profit institutes. They challenged the authorities, who intended to carry out the demolition of the 798 Arts District, to preserve the cultural heritage of that area and shift power to the people. The 798 Arts District can serve as a model of sustainability for other arts districts or redevelopment projects in urban areas. VIU logo WLCE logo Information Vancouver Island University World Leisure Centre of Excellence Main image by Leeluv (2011) © Lihui Wu 2022

Locating vernacular creativity outside the ‘urban cool’ in Beijing: ephemeral water calligraphy

ABSTRACT How and where to be creative, and what creativity entails and affords has been subject to momentous change in recent decades in China. Since the early 2000s, the discourse of creativity has played a leading role in governmental policies that aim to boost economic development through a focus on the creative industries. First-tier Chinese cities have reinvented themselves as creative hotbeds with distinctive areas, often located at the fringes of the city, for creative production and practice (Ren and Meng [2012]. Artistic urbanization: creative industries and creative control in Beijing. International journal of urban and regional research, 36 (3), 504–521, Power, capital, and artistic freedom: contemporary Chinese art communities and the city. Cultural studies, 33 (4), 657–689). This article complicates this creative-city script, one that is deeply enmeshed in a global proliferation of the creativity discourse in tandem with Chinese state policies, by examining the practice of water calligraphy. This is an urban ephemeral creative practice that takes place in public parks in the centre of Beijing. Water calligraphy, done by the elderly in Beijing, challenges the idea of creativity as the domain of a young cool urban class, while its ephemerality contests ideas that urban creativity is necessarily forced into structures of commodification and governmentalization. Water calligraphers' adherence to the traditional discourse of calligraphy, despite several creative deviations, further challenges notions of creativity that identify it with novelty. Within the urban landscape, these senior citizens carve out a creative space for themselves outside designated art districts and creative industries clusters. In doing so, they disregard the imperative of the new that is conventionally believed to underpin ‘real’ creativity, and thus may help us to rethink the idea of creativity itself.

Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage with Cultural-creative Industry

This research aimed to explore the adaptive reuse pattern of the industrial heritage in the 798 Art District. It looks at how the relatively mature Cultural-creative industry links to urban regeneration activities, and what can be learnt from the redevelopment experience. In particular, it explores the role of the Cultural-creative industry and how it used the local industrial heritage to achieve the current layout and operation model of 798 art district. The adaptive reuse model of industrial heritage and the cultural–creative industry is assessed, the current issues and some targeted suggestions of 798 Art District are identified. During the historical evolution, the combination of the deserted urban land and the Cultural-creative industry worked as a successful redevelopment model. Although several studies have summarized of the development history of 798 Art District and its significant role in urban land and art markets, there has been little research on the role of creative class and industrial heritage in art districts and local tourism. This research will first provide literature review looking at the definition and development process of the Cultural-creative industry, the conservation and reuse of industrial heritage and the real-life cases of the reuse of industrial heritage in China. Then, the in-depth quantitative and qualitative methods are used to examine the development trajectory and characteristics of Beijing 798 Art District, the visitors’ tourist experience and the role of industrial heritage at the site. Ultimately, the discussion part will provide the comparison between 798 Art Districts with contemporaneous cases of industrial heritage reusing, and provide some recommendations to future development and operation.

Art, creativity, and tourism in creative quarters: trajectory and tensions of the cultural scene of the M50 art district in Shanghai

Artistic, cultural, or creative quarters are developing in major cities around the world, especially in China. These areas are often integrated into culture-based urban projects, with the aim of contributing to their renewal, attractiveness, and economic development, and increasing tourism. This article looks at the example of Shanghai's M50 art district to investigate the trajectories and tensions of creative quarters by focusing on three aspects: (i) the dynamics of their formation, (ii) gentrification and the tensions between their artistic and touristic attributes, and (iii) the transformations of cultural scenes embedded within them. Three main findings are discussed. First, M50 stakes its claim as a center for art and tourism in the city through the interplay of the underground (spontaneous artistic creation), the middleground (art galleries), and the upperground (planning by local authorities). This interplay complicates interactions between the parties involved, especially as the authorities have seized control, leaving the role of artists in M50 and the freedom allowed them open questions. Second, M50 presents a unique form of gentrification, whose touristic and commercial character bears witness to both local authorities' strategies focused on urban and economic growth, and the district's transformation from a center of artistic creation to one of cultural consumption. Third, M50 illustrates the mutation that cultural scenes can undergo, progressing from a lived scene, characterized by a dynamic art community; to an experienced scene, whose atmosphere is felt by tourists; a built scene, marked by an institutional strategy of formal recognition and branding; and finally, a publicized scene, with a high media exposure.

Comparison of 4th and 5th generation district heating systems

In a pursuit to increase the efficiency of district heating system there has been a continuous focus to reduce the system operating temperatures. This has led to the current state of the art district heating systems, commonly referred to as the 4th generation district heating, also known as low temperature district heating (LTDH). The success of the LTDH has fuelled a lot of research interest in district energy systems, one of the new research topics has been focusing on reducing the operating temperatures down to the ambient temperature (ATDH), commonly referred as 5th generation district heating. In these systems the supply temperature is insufficient for fulfilling the heating demands of the connected buildings, which then requires end-user located heat pumps to raise the supply temperature to the level required by the buildings. As of today, number of ATDH systems have been realized as part of various research projects. The question however remains if ATDH brings additional benefits compared to LTDH. This paper compares the levelized cost of heat from these two systems types for two countries with different climate zones. The results of the analysis indicate that LTDH is the favourable solution in both countries.

Urban regeneration with the intervention of industrial transformation and curatorial ideas ‐ A Case Study of Dafen Village, Shenzhen

As a by-product of China's rapid urbanization, the number of "villages in cities” is also significantly increasing, stalling further urban development. China has many mature experiences in transforming villages in cities, but few cases are based on cultural industries. Dafen Village in Shenzhen, a young city committed to transforming itself into an international art district through culture-orientated urban regeneration, is an exception. The transformation of villages in cities usually involves the reconstruction of old cities, the re-planning of urban landscapes and their architectural functions, to whose designs curatorial concepts and practices are indispensable. This dissertation adopts empirical analyses to examine the feasibility problems that Dafen Village has encountered in its transformation and conducts a comparative study of similar cases in China and other countries to explore transferable experience and solutions. Discussions focus on the profound role of curatorial ideas on the artistic and cultural innovations and operations in the transformation. The study concludes with an optimistic forecast of Dafen Village's new urban form after its urban regeneration.

Revitalization, transformation and the ‘Bilbao effect’: testing the local area impact of iconic architectural developments in North America, 2000–2009

ABSTRACT The term ‘Bilbao effect’ describes the potential of iconic architectural developments (IADs) designed by world famous architects to act as a catalyst for economic revitalization and transformation within neighbourhoods or regions. Despite the ubiquity of this term, its validity is still debated. Furthermore, research on the topic has relied almost exclusively on individual or small-N comparative case studies. This paper builds on this research by testing the Bilbao effect through a quantitative analysis of 142 IADs completed in Canada and the United States between 2000 and 2009. Using fixed effects modelling, a method that controls for selection bias, the analysis examines the effect of IADs on a set of outcome variables that measure neighbourhood-level economic and cultural changes during this period: population, rent, the number of local arts establishments and the number of cultural workers living in the area. The analysis demonstrates that neighbourhoods with IADs generally experienced more economic and cultural growth than non-IAD neighbourhoods during this time period. However, the paper also complicates these findings by examining differences in how this growth manifests itself within emerging versus established neighbourhoods. These differences are illustrated through a comparison of the Dallas Arts District and Lincoln Square, Manhattan.

Hidden geographies of social justice in an urban environment: the particularities of naturally-occurring arts districts

Despite extensive research on the role arts districts play in the economic development of cities, little is known about the dynamics of social interactions within those districts and their impact on society. Drawing on 26 interviews with actors and stakeholders of arts districts in Ljubljana, this paper explores the role of arts districts in creating a just city. Four dimensions of such districts, which represent the meaningful themes that emerged from the data, are examined. The first dimension is the interrelationship of artists, cultural workers and activists. The second dimension encompasses mutual support and forms of self-governance, whereas the third dimension investigates the role arts districts play in the neighbourhood. The fourth dimension seeks to define the role of arts districts as part of urban development generally driven by capital. The results show that arts districts are important in the struggle for the right to the city. Actors from these districts are committed to addressing the causes of social inequality at their root via artist-led civic engagement activities.

Beyond Artwashing: An Overview of Museums and Cultural Districts in Arabia

In recent years many cities have a empted to integrate cultural developments within their overall planning strategy. Within the wider Arab region, the Gulf Arab states have been at the forefront of such developments, which they see as a way of diversifying their economies. Through such initiatives the region is also se ing its sights on claiming the mantle as the Arab world's cultural leader. Large-scale institutions and the smaller spaces of art districts are seen as a way to modernize the Gulf states' local populations and integrate them within a wider cultural context. Yet such approaches have risks such as gentrification and potential marginalization of a larger part of the population who may see themselves excluded from cultural spaces. This paper aims to unpack these issues by situating the development of spectacular museums ('big spaces') and art districts ('small spaces') in the Gulf region within a wider global context. It is structured in three parts. First, a theoretical exploration looks at the changing nature of museums in the twenty-first century, and the proliferation of art districts as a way of a racting creatives and spurring economic and urban development. Second, the paper reviews the global spread of creative districts, distinguishing between planned and organic developments. The third and main part shifts the discussion to the Gulf Arab states, where the proliferation of museums and art districts is presented in more detail, se ing their development within a wider context. The conclusion outlines a series of directives that could lead the Gulf to the forefront of an urban renaissance in the region. Yet for that to happen there needs to be a substantial shift in their overall planning paradigm, including accounting for 'artwashing'.

Organic, Planned or Both: Alserkal Avenue: An Art District by Entrepreneurial Action in an Organic Evolutionary Context

While Dubai's urban scene is dominated by planned and pre-designed developments, grassroots initiatives have always been present and have helped shape the trajectory of the city's evolution. In one case, an industrial area, Al Quoz, has seen the clustering of art businesses over a relatively short period turning it into a cultural destination. Accounting for most of such clustering, Alserkal Avenue became Dubai's art hot-spot that changed the cultural map of the city. This article describes the rise of Alserkal Avenue, not only as the result of the entrepreneurial action of the proprietors but also as a product of a complex melange of economic, cultural, and urban evolutionary processes that intertwine with the rise of the city itself.

Burnt Red, Butterflies, Pinecones by Liz Saintsing

Recognizing the contribution art has had in the Mayo Clinic environment since the original Mayo Clinic Building was finished in 1914, Mayo Clinic Proceedings features some of the numerous works of art displayed throughout the buildings and grounds on Mayo Clinic campuses as interpreted by the author.

Influencing Factors and Mechanism of Urban Community Tourism Development: A Case Study of Beijing

Urban community tourism (UCT) is a tourism product that promotes the sustainable development of urban communities. This paper constructs an index system of the influencing factors of UCT development (UCTD), which includes five secondary and 15 tertiary indicators. The weights of the indicators are calculated through expert consultation and questionnaire surveys. Based on the index system, this paper empirically evaluates five typical urban tourism communities in Beijing (i.e., Nanluoguxiang, Shichahai, Dashilan, 798 Art District, and Sanlitun) using expert scoring and online comments. We further analyze the impact mechanism of UCTD qualitatively. The findings show that among the secondary indicators, cultural atmosphere and built environment have higher weights than location conditions, specialty shops, and community participation. Among all the tertiary indicators, eight of them (i.e., cultural themes, ornamental value, frequency of cultural activities, store longevity and popularity, cultural institutions, abundance of distinctive buildings, scenic integrity, and community managers’ willingness to support UCTD) account for 80% of the total weight. In terms of the impact mechanism, 15 factors further affect UCTD through demand for authentic travel experiences, reachability perception, travel shopping demand, and stakeholder coordination.

Visualizing Narratives of Art as Gentrification in the "Artwashing" of Boyle Heights

Author(s): Hamidi, Emmanuel | Abstract: In Boyle Heights, a predominantly Chicanx, working class, and renter neighborhood in Los Angeles, anti-gentrification activists have been rallying against “artwashing”—the appearance of art galleries and associated creative class consumption as a threat of gentrification. These concerns originate from the opening of several commercial art galleries in the neighborhood’s industrial outskirts adjacent to the “Arts District” in Downtown LA. The case of “artwashing” protest in Boyle Heights raises a contestation over the political and spatial possibilitiesof an art world in an existing urban neighborhood. With particular attention to these implications, this paper investigates the following critical questions: How is the relationship between art and gentrification visualized in Boyle Heights? What narrative of gentrification is represented in strategies of its resistance? This research paper will consider “artwashing” in Boyle Heights under particular social theories and geographic relations contributing to the rise of multiple forms of resistance, from neighborhood art projects capturing displacementto anti-“artwashing” organizations targeting the art galleries in the neighborhood. The investigation concludes by suggesting additional research on accounts of “artwashing” protests and urban development in the “Arts District’’ and encouraging the practice of incorporating new forms of urban development into new forms of spatial depictions and visual activism against gentrification.

Victoria Hall Theatre—Almost ready for prime time

The Victoria Hall Theatre was built in 1921 as a lively church in the center of Santa Barbara, California, but matured into a tired theatre in the center of the downtown Arts District. Initial considerations whether to renovate began with a study about minimizing intrusion of loud dance music from a neighboring open-deck club. Thereafter, the renovation took off, with major changes including an entirely new stage house, and replacing a problematic balcony with a continuous floor plan with great sightlines for its 294 seats. Exterior noise isolation is excellent considering its wood construction, and interior finishes promote great clarity and improved intimacy. However, the decision to reuse the six old air handling units in the attic, compounded by some questionable mechanical engineering omissions, undermined the theatre’s potential to make sound system reinforcement essentially unnecessary. This paper will review various renovation decisions, and the several steps to quiet the renovated HVAC to its current moderate levels, plus the follow-up that almost provided authorization to further quiet the system.

Small town factory into modern multi-purpose music hall

The Murphy Arts District in El Dorado, Arkansas is the redevelopment of historic and unique community assets to re-brand the community as a cultural performance mecca and to revitalize the local economy. The first completed phase of the project includes transformation of the historic two-level Griffin Automotive Building into a restaurant and indoor music venue. Acoustic challenges included renovation of a very large volume former factory space into a flat floor music venue to accommodate events from touring rock amplified concerts to wedding banquets. Sound isolation between the music hall and the attached restaurant also presented challenges with historic building constructions.The Murphy Arts District in El Dorado, Arkansas is the redevelopment of historic and unique community assets to re-brand the community as a cultural performance mecca and to revitalize the local economy. The first completed phase of the project includes transformation of the historic two-level Griffin Automotive Building into a restaurant and indoor music venue. Acoustic challenges included renovation of a very large volume former factory space into a flat floor music venue to accommodate events from touring rock amplified concerts to wedding banquets. Sound isolation between the music hall and the attached restaurant also presented challenges with historic building constructions.

Shapeshifting fields: Mao Chenyu’s rural media ecology

This paper examines the recent moving image work of artist, researcher, and rice farmer Mao Chenyu, who has spent over a decade making ethnographically inflected documentary work in his village outside of Yueyang in Hunan Province. With his innovative approaches, which combine the visual idioms of the essay film, found footage collage, autodidactic philosophical reflections, and observational cinema, his work provokes a conceptual reevaluation of rural life and agrarian labor among China’s peasantry. Mao is the founder of Paddy Film Farm, a grassroots operation that serves as both an independent film studio, as well as a cottage industry for the production of organic rice and strong liquor. Through his on-the-ground ethnographic research, he self-identifies as a “native anthropologist,” and explores new modes of knowledge production and experimental storytelling that are displayed in contexts ranging from China’s small circuit of underground film screenings to alternative art spaces and state-sponsored museums. In this paper, I draw on close readings of two of Mao’s films, I Have What? Chinese Peasants War: The Rhetoric to Justice (2014) and Cloud Explosion: Dongting Lake and the Death of Its Symbols (2015); multimedia installations at the 2016 Shanghai Biennial and a recent solo exhibition at A + Contemporary in Shanghai’s M50 Art District; and finally, on an analysis of my own ethnographic research (participant-observation field notes, informal interviews, textual analysis, and curated screenings and discussions) conducted with the artist between Shanghai and Yueyang from 2015 to 2017.

Placing Arts Districts within Markets: A Case Study of 798 Arts District in Beijing

AbstractThis article examines the dual role of arts districts as places situated simultaneously in the urban land and art markets. It highlights the need for research into arts districts to take this dual role into account, as well as the impact that the two markets can have on these places. While the impact of the art market on land values in arts districts has been studied in some cases of art‐led gentrification, there has been limited consideration of how the changing organization and structure of the art world and art market have affected these places, especially during the last decade. Through a case study of 798 Arts District in Beijing, China, this article demonstrates that both land value and the art market situation need to be taken into account when explaining changes to and/or the spatial stickiness of an art scene, and that an artist community's investment in the value of an arts district as a generator of symbolic capital in the art market could be one driver of land value. The article concludes by advocating for greater attention to the dual market role of arts districts, as well as a stronger engagement with the knowledge produced by art scholars in geographical and urban studies of arts districts.

Cultural policy and collaboration in Seoul’s Mullae art district

The transition from an industrial to knowledge-based economy is impacting urban growth across Asia. Many cities now seek to lure educated professionals through arts and cultural amenities, with a common focus on disinvested neighborhoods. The underlying planning tactics often favor top-down intervention over multi-sectoral collaboration, marginalizing and displacing the politically weaker constituencies that give neighborhoods their authenticity. Many studies have examined the drivers and impacts of this process in Western contexts, but further research is needed to understand collaborative governance for urban art districts in neoliberal contexts. Mullae, an artist-originated district in Seoul, illustrates collaboration between civil society and local government in such a context. Based on in-depth interviews, document analysis, and observational research, this study examines tensions among parties participating in and affected by urban development in art districts. Empirical findings are interpreted through a framework that focuses on three dialectics: economy, policy, and culture. Government overtures to collaboration are found to provide only limited avenues of policy influence among artists. This suggests the need for further research about the role of neoliberal forces in replicating elite place-building power structures, which remain at theoretical and practical odds with the concept of collaborative governance.