Tribute to Red Guards - Tian Taiquan

I don't know if that is what he meant, but the Chinese artist Tian Taiquan's works currently exhibited in Three White Wall Gallery in The Mailbox, certainly feature distorted and abandoned bodies of female Red Guards of Cultural Revolution.

Today I happened to stroll into the gallery and was knocked out by the strength of the images he creates.

Obviously I did not photograph his works, but you can sample some of them on this website.

http://www.likailin.com/web/li.nsf/doc/BA6AAC418515E411C12574C40069D731

I was not particularly impressed by Mapping Beijing exhibition in Birmingham Museum & Gallery, but I liked this small exhibition entitled 'Tears of Eros' very much. The works are enough powerful to impress me who is not Chinese and has little knowledge of Cultural Revolution, so chances are that you don't need to be a sinophile to appreciate his works.

If you are interested, check out the above web site, and do pay a visit. It is held in Three White Walls Gallery in the Mailbox, until 6th January. Admission free.

Birmingham Artsfest 2008

From the 12 to 14 September 2008, there was a event called Artsfest 2008. I did not know about it before a friend of mine told me on the 12 (Fri.). Was it because of lack of publicity or just because I was away until a few days ago, I don't know.

This is my neighbours' cat. She is very pretty, but shy; I have not managed to make friends with.

Nothing to do with the Artsfest, but I met here before I went to see the event on Saturday (13th Sept.).

"Went to see" is a bit of an exaggeration. The truth is that I went to do some shopping and saw some of the events while I was walking.

This is the first one I saw. It was a stage in Centenary Square, and there were a rapper singing and a bunch of youths dancing... or rather moving their bodies.

This one was rather amateuristic and I felt a sort of embarrassment.

And when I came to Chamberlain Square, I saw this.

The woman in the centre, dressed in Arabian style, is showing how to do belly dancing and the other woman next to her, in red dress, is instructing. It was entertaining.

Afterwards, there was a demonstration of belly dancing by several girls.

While we were watching this, a couple of guys in Nando's uniform were distributing something. I usually don't pick up freebies (because usually I end up in binning them), but the sight of the bag made me curious and I grabbed one.

What's in it?

There were marinated bbq chicken wings!

They were pretty good! It was labelled "plain", but definitely spicy and there was a hint of lemon zest. yum yum.

This is a stage installed in Victoria Square. It was a jazz or blues group.

This one was taken a day after (14th Sept. Sunday) on my way to go to the Church. It was in Brindley Place, and a dozen of girls in black were doing modern dance.

Anywhere we went, there was art! It was a great weekend.