Red Gate Gallery, Beijing

I didn’t expect to meet Brian Wallace, the Founding Director of Red Gate Gallery.

I was quietly looking at the exhibition when he came to speak to me, with that open, straightforward kindness that immediately puts you at ease.

We talked about his gallery, its beginnings, the Chinese art scene he has seen grow. Through his words, you could feel the years of work, the artists supported, the exhibitions built sometimes in defiance of convention. He believed early on in the potential of this emerging scene, at a time when young Chinese contemporary artists had no place or structure to show their creations, sometimes pushing boundaries in times when few dared to.

Red Gate Gallery (Tribute to Zhou Jun)

Red Gate became the first contemporary art gallery in China, but it is much more than a space for exhibitions. It is a living part of the history of contemporary art in China, born from one man’s passion and perseverance, and from the conviction that art, even in uncertain times, deserves a free space to exist. That spirit still lingers in the space, a mix of freedom, curiosity, humor and kindness. 

W Bicycle, Wang Luyan

Nothing rigid, nothing pretentious. Like that sculpture of a bicycle that moves backward when you pedal - a perfect image of certain moments in creation, or in life. We all sometimes make great efforts without moving an inch, until we realize we were pedaling in the wrong direction.

And in a narrow corridor at the back of the gallery, I noticed a striking photograph of a torso painted like a Chinese landscape. Sometimes the artwork you carry with you isn’t the one you photographed, but the one you couldn’t.