The star-studded opening of the Christian Dior and Chinese Artists exhibition had all the glitz, glamor and downright excessive fabulousness you'd expect from the world of haute couture. A flock of specially invited guests spilled into the heavily-policed 798 art district especially for the occasion, including major A-listers Charlize Theron, Eva Green, Marion Cotillard, Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh. Unfortunately for the likes of us humble press, entry was strictly limited to those handpicked by Galliano himself – we were granted a suitably glamorous cocktail-fueled viewing the following day.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Village at Sanlitun's "Orange" will host another serving of Pecha Kucha. For those not familiar with the concept behind the strange name, Pecha Kucha basically boils down to a series of rapid-fire Powerpoint lectures from various creative types working in the city. It's a non-profit discussion platform that goes on in cities around the world and that has a special format to avoid wordy presentations. Speakers are limited to 20 slides and have only 20 seconds to introduce each one. Presenters at Saturday's event include Tally Back Director of Red Gate Gallery, Miao Wong from Acupuncture Records and filmmaker John Romankiewicz. For the full line up of speakers and more info about Pecha Kucha visit their site. We caught up with two (Miriam Deller and Florian Pucher) of the three organizers of the event (the third person is Sebastian Linack) and asked them a bit about the history of Pecha Kucha in Beijing. To make things a little interesting, and in true Pecha Kucha style, we also decided to put limits on their responses: 6 questions and a maximum of 20 words per answer. We began by asking about Beijing's first ever Pecha Kucha night.

Back at the end of August, the Beijinger's Art Editor Venus Lau reported rumors had been circulating that the National Art Museum of China was planning on opening a huge new gallery especially devoted to contemporary art. More details about the new museum were revealed yesterday, with The Art Newspaper quoting the director of the NAMOC, Fan Di'an as saying that the huge new gallery (80,000 sqm) will be built in the vicinity of the Bird's Nest and that it will indeed be home to the gallery's collection of Chinese modern and contemporary art. There has still been no official announcement about the plan to build a new gallery.

Everyone knows, though none of us can really seem to fathom it, that the world is going down the gurgler. The credit crisis, triggered by the subprime fiasco in the US, is so bad that even the president of the US is willing to admit that "this sucker could go down." It's starting to feel like we're entering some twilight zone that precedes a world depression. It's during this interim period, when no one really knows what's going on, that the inconceivable happens. September 15 was one of those days. On that day Lehman Brothers, a 158-year-old American investment bank, filed for bankruptcy protection. Over in London, auction house Sotheby's were flogging off a collection of Damien Hirst's art works for a record USD 200 million. To quote Hirst - who along with painting dots and suspending animals in formaldehyde, also likes to use butterfly wings in his works - "I guess it means that people would rather put their money into butterflies than banks." News Biscuit, an Onion-like satirical news blog, joked that the highest grossing work from the auction was a piece called "Oh Shit" featuring "a Merrill Lynch employee suspended in a tank of formaldehyde." The truth wasn't far off, the most expensive item sold that day was an installation titled "The Golden Calf" - a "gilded and crowned calf embalmed in a tank of formaldehyde." it sold for USD 18.6 million.

News

The UCCA, which is currently hosting the impressive Our Future exhibition, are now open 7 days a week and entry is free until the end of August. You can take a look at our earlier review of the exhibition here. The new restaurant at UCCA, Super Ganbei, is now open you can call 5128 5488 to reserve a table. Their hours are noon-2.30pm, 6-9.30pm. They expect to have an official opening event in September.
Ullens also have some great events going on, yesterday afternoon American sculptor Alexander Calder gave a talk at the gallery and this afternoon at 4pm as part of a series of talks to accompany the Our Future exhibition, Chinese artist Wang Xingwei will talk about conceptual painting and the “future of art practice.” You’ll need to reserve a ticket to attend the talk. Reservations through the Ullens site or by calling 8459 9269. A who's who of the Beijing art world will also be gathering at the gallery this Sunday to discuss the future trends in Chinese contemporary art.

The following profile of Cai Guoqiang, the creative director behind the opening ceremony's fireworks display first appeared as the art feature in the August issue of the Beijinger magazine. The National Art Museum of China (NAMOC) is currently hosting Cai’s retrospective, it will be on display until Sep 2.

Despite the bloody fistfight that marred its opening, UCCA’s (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art) new exhibition, Our Future (which runs until October 12), is well deserving of the spotlight. The show is a testament to the massive size of the UCCA exhibition hall – there is probably nowhere else in 798 that can display more than 90 works at once – and attests to the impressive diversity of the Guy and Myriam Ullens collection, which includes Chinese contemporary art works from the last few decades, ranging from the late oil painter Chen Yifei’s works to emerging female artist Cao Fei’s Second Life project.

There's always a few late-breaking events that come to our attention after our weekly 7 Days in Beijing newsletter has gone out, and so, in an effort to give the Beijinger readers the widest possible range of events to choose from, we offer this regular series of posts covering events taking place in the capital every Thursday.

Mad About English

Beijing's Channel Zero Media will host the premier screening of what looks like a very well-made documentary that examines the experience of various Chinese people in their attempts to learn English. Directed by Lian Pek and produced by Siok Sian Pek-Dorji, you can find more information about Mad About English here. For more info about the "Crazy English" phenomenon, see this recent article in the New Yorker. Get there early as they’re expecting a lot of people to attend. Free.

7pm. Channel Zero Salon (8855 0623)

There's always a few late-breaking events that we didn't hear about before our weekly 7 Days in Beijing newsletter goes out, and so, in an effort to give the Beijinger readers the widest possible range of events to choose from, we offer the first in what will hopefully be a regular series of posts covering events taking place in the capital every Thursday.

Klubb Rouge Rooftop Terrace Opening Party

A few weeks after their grand opening, one of the newest clubs in town unveils their rooftop space. Featuring a separate bar, DJ booth and what they claim are great views of the city, the terrace will play host to dancers, fire breathers and Philippe Ortega on the decks for this opening party. RMB 100 (includes one drink)
9.30pm. Klubb Rouge (6500 3333)

Last week, on a stuffy Wednesday afternoon, I went to check out the opening of the Map Games: Dynamics of Change exhibition at the Today Art Museum. Featuring the works of more than 20 big-name artists and architects, including the likes of Ai Weiwei and Ma Yansong, the show revolves around the topic of maps.

After entering the exhibition hall, it became obvious that the exhibition was divided into two types of artworks – ones inspired by maps and ones that actually were maps. Examples included Russian artist Varvara Shavrova's Beijing Map and Ai Weiwei's Map of China – an installation shaped like the map of China made from wood sourced from a relic of the Qing dynasty (see image above), were also examples of the creative interpretation of maps.