Since the 1980s, many Chinese artists have sought to distance themselves from the national art institutions and official structures. Around 1984, a group of ‘unofficial artists’ moved to the Beijing northwestern periphery and rented out cheap rural courtyard houses from local villagers, making Yuanmingyuan the first of a series of ‘artist villages.’ Without a Beijing household registration (户口), most of the new residents were not allowed to live in the capital. The clearance of the village in 1995 prompted many to migrate towards other more welcoming suburban areas (Wang 2012; Ren and Sun 2012). By then, some Chinese artists were gaining recognition on the international art scene, and landlords or village committees on the Beijing periphery gradually realized the opportunity of ‘hosting’ such communities. Authorizing the construction of galleries, artist studios and apartments, they engaged in ‘artistic urbanization’ (Ren and Sun 2012: 510) in areas considered as industrial or rural wastelands.

Such were the former military factory 798 near the capital airport's road, and Xiaopu village in Songzhuang town, Tongzhou district. In 2006, the two sites were officially endorsed as art districts, becoming tourist attractions quickly ‘absorbed into the mainstream official system’ (Wang 2010: 195). The official backing of art spaces, as well as the artists’ recognition on the international market seem to indicate that ‘the terms “unofficial” and “underground” which were used [to refer to art outside of the official political system in China] during the 1980s and 1990s, have lost their historical relevance’ (Wang 2013: 65). However, it does not mean that art communities have all developed in a steady and linear way.