A vast area of disused factories built by the East Germans, 798 Art District, also known as Dàshānzi (大山子), is Běijīng’s main concentration of contemporary art galleries. The industrial complex celebrates its proletarian roots in the communist heyday of the 1950s via the retouched red Maoist slogans decorating gallery walls and statues of burly, lantern-jawed workers dotting the lanes. The giant former factory workshops are ideally suited to multimedia installations and other ambitious projects.
You could easily spend half a day wandering around the complex. There are signboards with English-language maps to guide you around.
Highlights include BTAP , one of 798's original galleries; UCCA , a big-money gallery with exhibition halls, a funky shop and a cinema screening films most days; Pace , a wonderfully large space holding some top-quality exhibitions; Galleria Continua , another giant space, below a towering, hard-to-miss brick chimney.
