196 MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS Ai Weiwei’s Laundromat (2016) as currently exhibited at the National Gallery in Prague (Trade Fair Palace). Photo: Giorgio Strafella, 14 April 2017. represents one of the most influential figures Ai Weiwei’s in the global art scene and his exhibitions attract hundreds of thousands of visitors around the world (Royal Academy of Arts #Refugees 2015)—since 2015 even in China, although A Transcultural and his recent shows in Beijing do not feature Transmedia Journey his most explicitly ‘political’ artworks. His stature as an artist notwithstanding, it was Ai Weiwei’s advocacy of human and civil Giorgio Strafella rights in China—and the price he paid for Daria Berg his outspokenness, including eighty-one days in jail and a brain haemorrhage (Grube 2009b; Branigan 2011)—that established At least 5,079 people died in the him as a celebrity dissident in the West at Mediterranean Sea during 2016 while the end of the past decade. Ai Weiwei’s most attempting to reach Europe’s shores critical art and activism now address the (International Organisation for Migration condition of refugees, rather than Chinese 2017). While many Europeans have society, putting European governments responded to the struggle of the refugees rather than the Chinese state ‘on trial’ while and other migrants from the Middle East adding a ‘transcultural’ dimension to his and Africa with either fear or indifference work (Welsch 1999; Ai 2013). Nevertheless, (Poushter 2016; Dearden 2017), a Chinese as we shall argue in this essay, Ai Weiwei’s artiste engagé based in Berlin has employed most recent work stems from the same installations, documentary filmmaking, as philosophy he has espoused throughout his well as a sizeable social media presence to career. try and sensitise the West to this on-going tragedy (Sierzputowski 2016). Ai Weiwei MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 197 envisages a new modernist movement Clarity and Awakening founded on the liberation of humanity and the victory of the ‘humanitarian spirit’ Ai Weiwei states that ‘freedom of speech, (rendaozhuyi jingshen), coupling a critique human rights are related to my early struggle, of traditional definitions of art with a or my family’s or the whole generation’s reflection on the existential condition that struggle, in fighting for those basic rights’ should lead to doubt, befuddlement, and (Bloomberg 2017). As every Chinese person finally ‘awakening’ (juewu). Awakened who has ever heard of Ai Weiwei knows, he artists, he hopes, will in turn awaken the rest is the son of Ai Qing (1910–1996), a famous of society by exposing reality ‘unpolished poet imprisoned by the Kuomintang in the and unvarnished’ and its intrinsic ‘terror, 1930s for his leftist activism (Gao 2012). emptiness, and boredom.’ Rather than Despite the mutual admiration between leading to cynicism and inaction, this stance Mao Zedong and Ai Qing, the Communist is closely linked to Ai Weiwei’s activism in Party persecuted him between 1957 and that he believes artists who do so become 1978, exiling his whole family from Beijing a ‘virus’ of change by priming society to to the western provinces. At the onset of imagine and desire change (Ai and Zeng the Reform and Opening era in 1978–1979, 1995). As Ai Weiwei wrote in 2013, first ‘you Ai Weiwei joined an experimental artistic need people to recognize they need change. movement known as the Stars Group Then, you need them to recognize how to (xingxing). After the authorities shut down make change. Finally, change will come’ (Ai the Stars Group exhibition in Beijing on 1 2013). Echoing the wider intellectual debate October 1979, artists, poets, and intellectuals of those years, in the 1990s (Strafella 2017), staged street protests demanding freedom of Ai Weiwei already rejected both emulation expression and fusing artistic creativity with of the West and nativism as inadequate political activism (Lu 2014). Ai Weiwei’s standpoints, advocating instead civic early encounter with Western society also engagement, creative independence, and the contributed to shaping his political and courage to affirm the value of human life. artistic sensibilities. While living in New Centred around the values of ‘clarity’ York between 1981 and 1993, Ai Weiwei and ‘awakening’, the approach described studied the works of artists who still greatly above represents what we have termed influence his art to this day—such as Warhol, ‘communication activism’ and permeates Beuys, Duchamp, and Kosuth. During this Ai Weiwei’s art as well as his social media time, he also witnessed the limits of, and communication (e.g. blogging, tweeting, the struggle for, civil rights in a Western etc.) (Sorace 2014). Ai Weiwei designs democracy (Mao et al. 2012). both so that instances of oppression and Ai Weiwei’s theoretical writings on art injustice hit the audience with maximum published since the mid-1990s reveal the brutality and effectiveness, delivering a roots of the disposition and method that clear message and eliciting compassion. one finds in his on-going exploration of the His art documenting and mourning the refugee crisis as well as in his earlier works. death of schoolchildren in the 2008 Sichuan In a 1997 artistic manifesto entitled ‘Making earthquake reflects this methodology (e.g. Choices’ (zuochu xuanze), the artist wrote Remembering, 2009) (Grube 2009a), as do that art ought to embody a critical reflection his recent installations in Amsterdam (# of the human condition and the ‘awakened’ SafePassage, 2016), Berlin (2016), Florence artist’s ‘vigilance on society and the crisis (Reframe, 2016), New York (Laundromat, of humanity’ (Ai 1997). Here Ai Weiwei 2016) Vienna (F Lotus, 2016), Copenhagen 198 MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS (Soleil Levant, 2017), and Prague (Law of the and CNN played a key role in establishing Journey and Laundromat, 2017), all related his celebrity status. As Chloe Preece wrote to the refugee crisis. in 2015, they framed Ai Weiwei as ‘a political hero/martyr’ who fought for freedom of expression against a repressive regime—a Denouncing European narrative that provided ‘reassurance of the Indifference West’s ideological superiority’ and thus contributed to his popularity among their audience/readership. Ai Weiwei’s art and In 2015, the Chinese government returned activism with regard to the plight of Middle Ai Weiwei’s confiscated passport. It is Eastern and African refugees—a plight hard to speculate under what conditions exacerbated by the policies of European his passport was returned, except that he countries, which he accuses of culpable promised to inform the Chinese authorities indifference—undermines that narrative of any upcoming exhibition (Bloomberg and partially recasts his media persona from 2017). Even though Ai Weiwei appeared one extolling the virtues of Western political to make relatively benign statements systems, to one lambasting the moral paucity regarding the Chinese legal system to the of their current leaders. German press (Sorace 2015), he continues to On the other hand, the portrayal of denounce censorship in China (Hantzschel refugees in Ai Weiwei’s photographs—and 2015a; Han 2017). It is worth remembering occasionally even in his artworks—tends to that Ai Weiwei has been long critical of decontextualise its subject. Similar criticism US and European authorities, criticising was raised against his appropriation of the civil rights abuses in the United States and image of Alan Kurdi, a child who drowned in showing support for Chelsea Manning, the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach Edward Snowden, and even Julian Assange Greece, and his recent documentary film on social media. Human Flow (Mortensen 2017). Ai Weiwei’s Shortly after Ai Weiwei relocated to Berlin Mediterranean journey mainly reached us looking for ‘a normal life’ (Hantzschel via a stream of snippets and images usually 2015b), he left on a journey around the provided with little background information Mediterranean Sea to document the or references. In particular, portraits conditions of refugees and migrants in the of refugees on Ai Weiwei’s Instagram region. Ai Weiwei’s portrayal of their lives, commonly lack details with regard to where their odyssey, and their clashes with the they were taken, by whom, or the identity European authorities have reached a global of those portrayed: Who are the men and audience through various artistic mediums, women appearing next to Ai Weiwei in a constant stream of Instagram and Twitter his selfies? The same questions could be posts, and now also a documentary film asked of the photographic wallpapers entitled Human Flow. Furthermore, news in Laundromat and Law of the Journey. media and online art magazines have Moreover, on social media Ai Weiwei conveyed images of that art to an audience intertwines refugee-related fragments— much larger than the number of people who photos, headlines, data, etc.—with equally could see it in person (PBS 2016). It is worth fragmentary peeks into his professional noting that during the years when Ai Weiwei and private life, including selfies and aimed his activism mainly at the Chinese images of exhibitions, famous friends, press Party-state (i.e. 2008–2014), news outlets photographers, his son, and so on. Images of such as The New York Times, The Guardian, life in refugee camps alternate seamlessly MADE IN CHINA - WORK OF ARTS 199 with snapshots from the glamorous life of a a seventy-metre long overcrowded lifeboat. celebrity artist. Some of the latter could be Currently displayed in Prague, the lifeboat read as portraits of the artist as a celebrity, is suspended in the hall of the Trade Fair à la Warhol, the difference being that Andy Palace, which Nazi Germany utilised during Warhol posed as politically neutral while Ai the Second World War as an assembly point Weiwei as hyper-political. When one looks for Jewish prisoners before deporting them at Ai Weiwei’s photo-blogging as a whole, to the concentration camp of Terezín.