A gallery crawl, as I often observe, is sort of like a pub crawl, except the drinks are free. This assumes you are smart enough to hit the exhibitions when they open, which is ridiculously easy these days, as spring brings the galleries out of hibernation. This weekend brings a host of opportunities to get out amongst the art, and the drinks and snacks, in the heart of the action at 798 and its upstart cousin Caochangdi. And if drinks are not such a priority, but instead finding something away from the madding crowd, then there are interesting opportunities in Haidian and Sanlitun too.
 

Let’s start with Haidian. This is not on the normal art circuit, but there’s at least one great space out there, the Yuan Center of Art. And today is the last day of the “Zhongjian” (Midway) exhibition. Closing day means no drinks, but don’t be deterred the art is worth the trip. Curated by local artist, Jin Sha, the show looks at 14 artists who choose to play outside their comfort zone by working work between cultures and most notably highlights a group of Chinese artists who moved to Australia in the late 1980s –  and made their names there – and today move between their two homes while pursuing international careers. These include renowned artists Guan Wei, Liu Xiao Xian and Shen Shaomin, the latter most recently seen installing a huge project in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

This show will next tour to Tianjin, Shanghai and Xiamen before setting off down to Australia. Recommended.

Over in Sanlitun, still no drinks, but instead edible art at the Comptoir de France bakery at East Lake Villas on Dongzhimenwai Dajie. There French-born local artist Marianne Daquet is showing her choco-artistic exhibition, “In Search of Lost Time”. This is the kind of show you should go to without being spoilt by knowing too much in advance. Check it out.
 

Back in traditional gallery territory at 798, three openings command your attention. Unmissable is the film and video show “I Want to Talk to You” at the new T Art Center next to Red Star gallery. Curated by guerilla artist Jian Jun Xi, most recently seen taking a scale model of the USS Enterprise for a spin at Beijing Tokyo Art Projects, the exhibition brings together stimulating work by artists as diverse as Taiwan’s Tehching Hsieh, Chinese luminaries Xu Bing, Ai Wei Wei and Shen Shaomin and Andy Warhol. You may wonder what Warhol is doing in this show that is so focused otherwise on the dilemma of Chinese-ness. His contribution is his starring role in a documentary about a visit he made to Beijing in 1982. Jian Jun Xi found this forgotten classic in a bookshop in London and it is completely fascinating, showing Warhol wandering through a Beijing landscape that is now entirely transformed. It is a portrait of a China that then seemed so monolithic and impenetrable, but now seems almost quaint. Also check Shen Shaomin’s grueling documentary about ethnic Russian-Chinese  living stranded between worlds in China’s far North East, “I am Chinese” and Xu Bing’s lyrical meditation on the life-cycle of a silk worm.
 

Round the corner leading gallery Long March Space comes out of hibernation today at 4pm with shows across their three spaces. Check them all out including one where conceptual artist Zhang Hui makes the seemingly banal mesmerizing transforming ordinary and random sights into gigantic paintings. Also in 798, Joy Art presents “Individual”, a group show considering that most elementary question, what makes art Individual. Artists including Chen Xi, Qin Yufen, Wang Luyan and Judith Neilson & Wang Zhiyuan will be featured.
 

And finally, do take the trip out to 798’s rural neighbor, Caochangdi. This afternoon Three Shadows Art Photography Centre will announce the winner of their first photography prize. From 300 submissions they chose work from 27 photographers ranging in ages from their teens to their forties and have now asked an international jury to decide who should win 80,000 RMB and the chance to develop their careers with the help of this leading institution. The decision will be made today, so get out there and look at the work of the contenders, which is fascinating, varied and intensely personal. The competition has proved one thing beyond dispute – photography remains one of the strongest art forms in China today, drawing on a great tradition of photojournalism and artistic expression. While in the area stroll across to visit Three Shadows’ neighbors, Platform China and Andrew James Art (who have taken up temporary digs next to F2 Gallery) and check their new shows. 12 emerging artists invite us to “Look Deeper” at Platform, while Andrew James holds the first show of Post-70s generation artist Yang Jing, whose rich paintings and dioramas introduce us to a fantasy world where the Renaissance meets New China.

F2 meanwhile shows us works on paper from China, India and Iran.
 

Have fun