Bird's Nest Stadium, Beijing

Bird’s Nest Stadium, designed for the Beijing Olympics, looks pretty incredible – as do many of the other buildings created for the Olympics. But for every building that gets built, there are many ideas that don’t. For the national stadium, China had a competition. Here are some of the other entries (click on thumbnails to see a larger picture):

“a symbolic link – a bridge – between old and new,” apparently, the roof moves as 2 leaves, but I dont really understand how…

“a floating water lily surrounded by petals and blossoms,” the central roof can open to a perimeter of 130 meters

yep, another retractable roof, complete with UFO aesthetics

pretty neat shape that doesnt show in the thumbnail. click on image to see larger picture

I don’t understand this, but apparently the floating thing is a suspending retractable roof

See the 13 finalist entries, multiple pictures of each and a full explanation here.

mascots of 2008 Beijing Olympics

I read a lot about the FUWA when they were first unveiled as the 2008 Beijing Olympic mascots about a year ago. Thought now, on this opening day might be a good time to review how the mascots came to be.

According to the Olympic site, each of Fuwa has a rhyming two-syllable name -a traditional way of expressing affection for children in China: Beibei is the Fish, Jingjing is the Panda, Huanhuan is the Olympic Flame, Yingying is the Tibetan Antelope and Nini is the Swallow.

When you put their names together — Bei Jing Huan Ying Ni — they say “Welcome to Beijing.”

Beibei: fish and water are symbols of prosperity and harvest, as well as having a surplus for a good year and good life. According to the site, “Beibei is known to be gentle and pure. Strong in water sports, she reflects the blue Olympic ring.”

Jingjing: a symbol of happpiness. The Panda is loved and protected throughout China. He and the lotus’s on his head symbolize the lush green of the Panda’s environment and the desire to protect nature’s gifts. “Jingjing is charmingly naïve and optimistic. He is an athlete noted for strength who represents the black Olympic ring.”

Huanhuan: “In the intimate circle of Fuwa, Huanhuan is the big brother. He is a child of fire, symbolizing the Olympic Flame and the passion of sport. Huanhuan is outgoing and enthusiastic. He excels at all the ball games and represents the red Olympic ring.”

Yingying: a fast and agile antelope, she symbolizes China’s great and huge landscape. “Strong in track and field events, Yingying is a quick-witted and agile boy who represents the yellow Olympic ring.”

Nini: represents the golden winged swallow – the most popular kite design in China. “Nini is as innocent and joyful as a swallow. She is strong in gymnastics and represents the green Olympic ring.

Han Meilin designed the mascots, went through many renditions (bureacracy is everywhere, after all), and infused the mascots with meaning and depth. they are not just a bunch of cute little dolls. He got his original idea from the five factors making up the world, including gold, wood, water, fire and earth.

Han Meilin was given an original concept by another person involved with the Olympics. His design team came up with over 4000 iterations of the characters and over 60 changes to the prototypes

Here is a sampling of what some of the other mascot ideas were:

Read this great interview with Han Meilin from the China Daily about how he came up with the characters.
Or see the Official Olympics Site to get more details about the mascots and their final meanings.

China has had to face its own environmental nightmares on the global stage. Air pollution from automobiles has changed driving restrictions, factories are being threatened to shut down, and now the lake in Qingdao being used for aquatic competitions is filled with algae. In some areas the lake may be several feet deep in algae growth which would seriously impede any boat.

China has responded with its foremost asset: people. It has been reported that more than 20,000 people are now actively removing the green carpet by hand. On a positive note, the algae is edible. Maybe we’ll see it for sale in the grandstand next to the local Tsingtao beer?

I’m ready to take another trip to China just so I can see some of these sculptures by Zhang Hui, born in 1969 in Yinchuan, China. Or, I could go to Amsterdam to the William Kerseboom Gallery, hmmm. At any rate, the perfect shininess of these little girls is just, well, perfect.

via MocoLoco

At least there’s the ultra-responsible approach by Simple to make your own! Sure, there’s still the gigantic woes of the animal & tanning industries, but at least it can be assembled with fidgety hands while watching American Idol Gives Back.

Pokadot stairwell. A celebration of Halloween near the Star Ferry, Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

So here are some of the galleries and artists that were particularly inspiring:

Wellington Gallery on Wyndham St
Tiny little gallery that only fit about 10 pieces, but all of them worth seeing. The gallery owner was incredibly friendly and told us a lot about the artists, and also showed us catalogs of other works by those artists. Two of our very favorite artists of the whole tour we saw at this gallery:
Liu Chun Hai, born 1966 in Harbin China, has a visually arresting contemporary style chock full of political commentary, or maybe he just likes a girl in uniform. Anyway, these 2 paintings we saw in the window are what made us go inside.

Also at the Wellington Gallery, was Liu Baomin. He is also from mainland China, born in 1968. I cannot find a website for him, and he is not listed on Wellington’s website, but I did find another Hong Kong gallery that shows much of his work online: Gallery on Old Bailey. I like the work we saw at Wellington better than the series represented on this site. The work we saw is quite large – maybe 60″ wide – and has a technique which looks like you are looking through a rainy window to the image. The colors are vivid, the greens are super juicy. It was hanging in the window which is the pic I snapped. Keep in mind that my pic has a lot of reflections which are not in the actual artwork, but all of the drippiness IS in the artwork.

The next gallery we went to was the Connoisser Art Gallery, 1 Hollywood Road. The artist that drew us into this gallery was Zhang da Zhong, an artist from Guangzhou, born in 1953. The pieces were portraits of young women in Red Guard uniforms (hmmmm, a recurring theme…). His technique has a classical art quality to it, but his subject matter conflicts with that style for a truly contemporary result.

Plum Blossoms Gallery, 1 Hollywood Rd, was a fun find, as they had a group show of contemporary artists showing at the time we were there. Jiang Shuo is a chinese female sculptor, turning red guards into cute little cartoons. Her art has been exhibited around the world and she now lives in Austria.

My favorite art at this gallery was by the Luo Brothers, 3 brothers out of Beijing. Their art is the embodiment of kitsch, and I love me some Chinese kitsch! Little fat babies are in every piece, and there’s usually at least one major logo of today mixed in. It’s all shiny happy colors and there’s often a shinier happier lacquer encasing the whole thing. I love it.

The Joyce Gallery was another that was a pleasure to visit. Apparently, their contemporary gallery opened a few days before we got there, so there is nothing on the web as of yet. They also have an antiques gallery, which is impressive. That webiste may be expanded to include the contemporary gallery, so I will link it here. Anyway, the folks we talked to were extremely knowledgeable about the artists and very willing to show us the work and tell us about it. The artist that immediately caught my eye upon walking in was Xiong Yu, and that was probably because the artwork had giant eyes. Found some pix at Artnet. Check it out to see more from this artist.

We had to venture into the Opera Gallery, which is aptly named as it lives up to it’s scary intimidating place for the most serious of art benefactors. But I couldn’t pass it up, because they had a Warhol exhibit. They had oodles of the Warhol Mao screenprints. After seeing Mao all over the place, I had to go back to the pop art version I was familiar with. They had much more high-end art worthy of a free look, like Xingtao Jiao’s Mao bust, which is a sculpture that looks like a Mao bust wrapped in kraft paper. What’s amazing is that this wrapped blob was totally recognizable as Mao! Anyway, the only pics I can find is on the Opera Gallery site. Rather than me putting them here, I think you should go there to check it out. Just look through the Asian Art section.

The last place I want to mention is the Baoqu Tang Gallery at the InterContinental Hong Kong in Tsim Sha Tsui. We went to this gallery because a poster caught my eye (see the post above). After trekking over to see the Yan Fei exhibit, we got there and realized the exhibit was over. We did get to see one piece that was still there, as well as a catalog of lot of his work. His painting style is amazing. It is unfathomably detailed and realistic, with every hair and every pearl rendered flawlessly. The color scheme is a bit dark, with a grayish cast to it, and the people themselves (especially the girls) look a little odd, with eyes that are too big and necks too long. Add to that the fact that the girls are just staring out at you without any expression whatsoever, and the effect “it’s real but it can’t be real” is eery and magnetic all at the same time.

Another piece of art with a sense of uncomfortable realism is a piece called “Woman with Bag” by Ba Te. She is more human than art normally allows a human to be…