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Truth to Power Ai Weiwei’S Public Discontent Is an Anomaly in the No-Politics World of Chinese Contemporary Art

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Truth to Power Ai Weiwei’S Public Discontent Is an Anomaly in the No-Politics World of Chinese Contemporary Art sunday features SUNDAY, AUGUST 16, 2009 Truth to power Ai Weiwei’s public discontent is an anomaly in the no-politics world of Chinese contemporary art BY DAVID FRAZIER CONTRIBUTING REPORTER arlier this week, around 30 police officers concerns to relate to the human struggle in China.” seems to draw on the aesthetics of minimalism a lineage that ran from Dada to Pop Art and “A state wants to be a world-class power, at top burst into the Sichuan hotel room of one of “Why are you so concerned about society? and process art. But from a bird’s-eye view Conceptual Art. His personal ideas of bringing economic performance, but at the same time E China’s foremost contemporary artists, Ai That is always the question,” he asked rhetorically, — the sculpture is about 3m tall and 10m across together found objects, or readymades, and wants to maintain a non-democratic society and Weiwei (艾未未). They detained him there for about speaking as part of an eight-hour interview — one sees China’s outline. The work is at once Chinese antiques, however, had not yet come in every field it’s very corrupt.” half a day to prevent him from testifying in the trial marathon at the Tokyo opening of Ai Weiwei: an elemental testimony to the Chinese character, into its own. When his father took ill in 1993, he But he has also picked his battles wisely, of activist Tan Zuoren (譚作人), who was charged According to What. “And my answer is simple: a statement against the destruction of its cultural decided to return to China. choosing issues with widespread popular sup- with subversion for collecting information related Because you are an artist, you have to associate legacy, and a vision of how to rebuild. “I’ve never hesitated in making big decisions port in China, like the Sichuan earthquake. to deaths of school children in the 2008 Sichuan yourself with freedom of expression.” (Interesting to note, all of Ai’s China maps in a very short time,” said Ai. “When I returned Months after the disaster, the government’s earthquake, according to reports. Now 52, Ai’s stout, bearded figure is by turns include Taiwan, and in Fragments, Taiwan is to China, I didn’t have a US passport, a wife or failure to announce an official death toll pushed Ai, who helped design Beijing’s Olympic indomitable and understated. To the art world represented as a pair of fused stools sitting off a university degree. From the Chinese point of Ai to organize his own citizen’s investigation. He Stadium and whose work now commands solo and media of the West, he has presented himself to the side. Taiwanese artist Michael Lin (林明 view, I was a total failure.” sent dozens of volunteers into the earthquake museum shows in the West, has also become as a cagey, sharp-tongued and quietly subversive 弘), who shares a gallery with Ai in Switzerland, Back in Beijing, Ai plunged into the antique zone, who have to date collected 5,194 names of deeply involved in telling the truth about the literatus. In China, meanwhile, he has become claimed he half-jokingly tried to buy the free- markets, and promptly began turning artifacts into dead school children. Ai published the list on his Sichuan quake. Government corruption and something of a godfather of the arts, inspiring deep standing piece for Taiwan in Ai’s 1.5m tall art by defacing or destroying them. He scrawled blog, which he claimed was getting 10,000 hits lack of transparency are the focus of his own respect among urban youth and culture circles rosewood sculpture, Map of China (2006), but Coca Cola logos on several 2,000-year-old vases, a day, before it was shut down by the Chinese art project, an effort to compile a list of school while also known to lord around his influence. was refused.) and one such vase he destroyed altogether in government. (A US-hosted version can still be children who died. Some believe his list, Think of him perhaps as a modern day Zhang Fei Ai grew up during the highly repressive years the performance Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn seen at http://blog.aiweiwei.com.) In May of this which now tallies 5,194 names, prompted the (張飛), the legendary warrior-general of the Three of the Cultural Revolution, the son of the revered (1995). Western galleries and collectors took year, China’s government, possibly under pres- government to finally release a student death toll Kingdoms era, who kneeled humbly before his king poet Ai Qing (艾青). “He was a poet for the nation, notice. At the same time, his architecture and sure from Ai’s project, admitted to the deaths of this May, more than a year after the disaster. but also flogged his underlings. An art world friend very much like Pablo Neruda for Chile,” recalled design studio also began to take off. 5,335 school children, but published no names. For his efforts, Ai’s blog has been shut down, once told me of a dinner in Beijing at which Ai Ai. “His poetry influenced a whole generation of Antiques, said Ai, “exist as evidence of the At that time, Ai was quoted as saying, “To me, his Beijing studio has been put under surveillance, suffered an offence, then ordered the restaurant’s intellectuals to become revolutionaries.” cultural tracks we made in the past.” numbers are not enough, because the names are and earlier this year unidentified men, probably entire staff to bow before him and apologize. Ai Qing was an early supporter of socialism, “We need to get out of the old language,” he related to which schools collapsed.” For him, from China’s National Security Bureau, paid a Ai’s artworks meanwhile are intimately related who was imprisoned by the Chinese Nationalist continued, by way of explaining his iconoclast this remains a problem of shoddy construction distressing visit to his mother. to Chinese consciousness, but can at the same Party for three years during the 1930s and in tendencies. “The language of communication will and corruption. At the same time, Ai’s stature in the art world time be apprehended both from the East and from 1941 joined up with the Communist army in always need to be renewed.” “This is the most successful of my works, continues to reach new heights. Last month, his the West. His themes range from a fascination Yanan. Once the People’s Republic of China but the one least understood by the art world,” first ever solo exhibition, Ai Weiwei: According with basic elements of the national character — he was established in 1949, he was able to travel AUGMENTED AMBIT claimed Ai. “But it doesn’t matter, because I to What, opened at Tokyo’s Mori Art Museum. creates works out of tea, ancient vases and China’s the world through a UNESCO program to bring It was not until relatively recently however that will never be satisfied if my works just remain In October, he will see a larger and fuller map, among other things — to laments for the literary minds of the Third World together and Ai’s art began to take on a social dimension. In in museums.” retrospective in another solo museum show, Ai ravages of modernization and, lately, outcries over met other luminaries, including Jorge Borges. 2007, for Documenta, one of the most eminent Ai has, however, translated the work into Weiwei: So Sorry at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, corruption and government malfeasance. But Ai Qing’s position as a rising poet laureate exhibitions in contemporary art, he — with the sculpture. In Tokyo, he created a memorial to Germany, which will cover a 2,000m2 wing of the could not weather Mao Zedong’s (毛澤東) lifelong help of his gallery and sponsors — bought plane the children out of around 1,000 school-kid back- museum and its entire facade. NATIONAL BECOMING distaste for intellectuals. When Mao launched the tickets for 1,001 Chinese nationals and brought packs snapped together into the form of a snake, So even as Ai’s international reputation Maps of China are the basis of at least three Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957, he and around them to Germany as part of a work called Snake Ceiling (2009). In Munich, he will cover continues to bloom to a level few of his Chinese works on display at the Mori Museum, and even half a million other educated types were punished, Fairytale. It was a grand gesture of affirmative the facade of the Haus der Kunst with over 9,000 contemporaries can match, he is at the same though they can’t help but carry with them “because he couldn’t continue to support the action, a statement that an international exhibition such backpacks. time, as the world’s leading collector of Chinese a sense of political consciousness, they are party,” explained Ai. He went into exile, first to should have a truly international audience, not just “I often think what I’m saying is for the contemporary art, Uli Sigg, noted in Tokyo last not about nationalism. Instead, the works are Manchuria, then to Xinjiang, where he spent more predominantly Western visitors who could afford people who never had a chance to be heard,” month, taking on a “dissident character.” probably best seen in the same light as Jasper than 20 years and raised Weiwei and his other the trip. said Ai, who emphasizes humanitarian concerns Moreover, Ai’s public discontent is an anomaly Johns’ famous paintings of the American flag children.
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