Art District 黄桷坪艺术街道

(An old tank factory converted into an art space. Russian portraits were on display when we went.)
(A wall in the courtyard of a tank factory that had been converted into a museum.)
(As we followed the signs from art place to art place we came across a load of elemtary school students going home for the day.)
(Chongqing people meet art.)
(Colorful old highrise that has been overtaken by ART!)
(A hotel, with panda!)
(A painting from the Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art pictured below.)
(The Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art looks like it too was a factory of some sort. Not many staff were about so we didn't really have an opportunity to ask.)
(Grafitti-ed highrise.)


One lazy Thursday afternoon my friend Ben and I decided to explore the 艺术街道 （Art Street, ee-shoo jyeh-dao) of Chongqing. I had seen it before but only once and I was in a crowded bus. Ben is a spoken English teacher at my school, he has Thursday afternoons off.
The neighborhood of Huangjue Ping [Mandarin: hwang-ju'eh ping, Chongqing Dialect: Hwang-goh-ping] surrounds Chongqing's art school, it looks as thought it has been taken over by an army of grafitti artists!
Sure enough it has! We didn't see any up to any mischief though. The place is quite remarkable. It's so unique compared to the boring white-ish greyish high rises that can be seen throughout Chongqing. Multicolored, artistic buildings are really a relief! Just our luck! There was an art festival going on! Many studios, galleries, museums, and old factories were open displaying art. But! We were a little too late in the day and were only able to see a few.
Many of the highrises have art supplies stores below them. I would have liked to meet some Chinese art students, or some of the artists that had their work on display. When we finished looking at the paintings in the museum, Ben and I snooped around the Chongqing Museum of Contemporary Art's back studios. Unfortunately no one was to be found!

On the way back home Ben and I were happy to know that Chongqing has a cool place like this.