Wk 2 – Artist – Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

About the Artist

Ai Weiwei is the most famous Chinese artist living today. He was born on August 28, 1957 in Beijing, China. Ai collaborated with Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron as the artistic consultant on the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics. As an activist, he calls attention to human rights violations on an epic scale; as an artist, he expands the definition of art to include new forms of social engagement. Ai himself is from this long line of free-thinkers and writers, marginalized both by the right and left. From smashing an ancient vase to reciting the names of children who died due to government negligence, Ai’s dramatic actions highlight the widening gap between the ideal and the real in Chinese society. He is also one of the earliest conceptual artists to use social media – Instagram and Twitter, in particular – as one of his primary media.

Analysis

Trained in the West, Ai is intimately familiar with Conceptual and Minimalist traditions, and combines them. In his refusal to pleasure the eye, he is the opposite of Jeff Koons, his equally famous contemporary. In their visual austerity, Ai’s pieces are closely aligned with the work of other global activists, among them David Hammons, Robert Gober, and Doris Salcedo, whose large-scale projects call attention to weighty social issues, breaking free from the confines of the gallery and the museum, and bridging the gap between the visual and the social.

AI WEIWEI, DROPPING A HAN DYNASTY URN, 1995, THREE GELATIN SILVER PRINTS, EACH 148 × 121 CM. COURTESY THE ARTIST.

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, an early work by Ai Weiwei, demonstrates his show-stopping conceptual brilliance, and desire to provoke controversy. Outside his mother’s home in Beijing, he dropped and smashed a 2000-year old ceremonial urn. Not only did the artifact have considerable value (the artist paid the equivalent of several thousand US dollars for it), but symbolic and cultural worth. The Han dynasty is considered a defining moment in Chinese civilization. Understandably, antique dealers were outraged, calling Ai’s work an act of desecration. Ai countered by saying “General Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one.” It was a provocative act of cultural destruction in reference to the erasure of cultural memory in Communist China, an anti-elite society that carefully monitored access to information, especially about its dynastic history. In its literal iconoclasm and spotlight on hypocrisy, this smashed vase embodies the central message Ai would continue to explore. The action imposed upon the antique Han pot represents the destruction of conventional or established values, creating a work that is in turn both iconoclastic and regenerative, while also recognising that the significance of a cultural object is always subject to change. A constant in the artist’s diverse practice is his unrelenting scrutiny of structures of power and advocacy of independent thought, stimulating powerful dialogues regarding the relationship between history and value. Synonymous with stability, prosperity, and cultural ascendancy, the Han Dynasty period occupies a significant position in China’s national consciousness. The historical density surrounding Ai’s act is juxtaposed with the artist’s confrontational and unapologetic blank stare, resulting in a gesture that not only unsettles the status quo, but also subverts instituted notions of culture and the role and form of art in contemporary society.

My Experience

Ai Weiwei and his artworks give me a positive feeling of how to influence people and express one’s idea by using the power of art. Ai Weiwei raises his voice to fight against the government’s policy by using his collection of artworks as a source of motivation. Moreover, when looking at his Instagram (Ai Weiwei’s Instagram) I feel like he record every moment in his active life. Instead of posting pictures of himself like others, Weiwei capture moments of his works, friends, and people. By looking at his photos, I can feel that Weiwei dedicates all his life to his work as an artist and an activist.