Newman Huo

MORE than 40 freelance artists with the Shenzhen Free Art House (SFAH) were relocated to F518 Idea Land in Bao’an District Tuesday, one month after a fire closed the SFAH’s previous location in Nanshan District on Feb. 27.

The SFAH reopened with a grand ceremony and a series of art exhibitions in F518 Idea Land in Boa’an District on Tuesday.

The opening ceremony featured a party, at which a total of 16 works donated by SFAH artists were put up for auction.

More than 70,000 yuan (US$10,000) raised by the auction will be donated to families of the 15 people killed in the fire, according to Du Yinghong, a Shenzhen-based freelance artist and head of the SFAH.

“The fire was such a tragedy, but it also brought a chance of rebirth for SFAH artists,” Du said at the party Tuesday.

Du and 20 other young and ambitious artists rented the seventh floor of a disused factory in Nanshan District at the end of 2006, and turned the floor into 21 workshops.

By the end of 2007, the SFAH had become increasingly influential in South China, and had drawn more than 40 freelance artists from all over the country.

However, the fire caused the SFAH to close. Two days after the fire, Dong Weipeng, chairman of F518 Idea Land in Bao’an District, contacted Du and told him that he was willing to offer the SFAH a total of 35 workshops if the artists were open to relocation.

F518 Idea Land, which opened Dec. 7, 2007, is currently home to more than 30 companies in the fields of graphic design, industrial design, architecture design and environment design as well as six private galleries.

“With the help of the Bao’an District Government, F518 Idea Land was originally created to help upgrade labor-intensive industries in the district,” said Li Li, Dong’s assistant.

“With SFAH artists joining, we aim to develop F518 Idea Land into a significant gathering place on the Chinese mainland for designers and artists from all over the country and the world,” Li said.

The F518 Idea Land will soon introduce an international residency program, inviting more than 10 acclaimed artists, curators and art researchers from around the world to become residents for one to six months every year, according to Li.

Of the five art exhibitions which opened in the central exhibition hall of F518 Idea Land, the exhibition titled “Made in Shenzhen,” showcases a total of 42 works by seven SFAH artists, namely Zi Zhe, Luo Taisheng, Wu Desheng, Liu Hongyi, Ren Xiaobin, Gao Guofu and Chen Xi.

“Through this exhibition, we wish to present a collective show of some young promising artists of the SFAH, from whom audiences may have a glance of the potential development of avant-garde art in Shenzhen in the next few years,” Du said.

SFAH photographer Zhang Xun’s exhibition “Paradise Lost” features about 80 photographs he took of the abandoned SFAH in Nanshan District in February.

Another exhibition of Zhang’s photographs, titled “Questioning,” shows about 20 photographs he took of Du dressed up as a doctor, walking around the previous SFAH location and pretending to diagnose the factory buildings’ “illness” with a stethoscope.

SFAH artist Shen Lu’s art exhibition, titled “Cocooning,” is actually a large outdoor installation, which is made up of several white sculptures tied together with red knitting wool.

Another joint exhibition, titled “Our Time,” is a showcase of works by 12 avant-garde artists from Beijing and Xi’an, the capital city of Shaanxi Province.

Beijing artist Lin Shanwen expressed his best wishes for the reopening of the SFAH in Boa’an District through about 200 70-centimeter-wide and 10-meter-long banners. The banners carried congratulations from 200 celebrities and organizations worldwide, and are hung on a wall of the main building in F518 Idea Land.