ln 1995, controversial artist Ai WeiWei photographed himself as he picked up a 2000-year-old
urn and Iet is smash to the ground. f we're appalled when cultural heritage is
destroyed in the name of god and state, how can we possibly defend Ai's action?
How can we buy a ticket to see photos of it in a museum? How can tho photos
sell for over a million dollars? How can this man be one of the most renowned
artist of our time?
Study of Perspective – White House, 1995–2003
Ai Weiwei is decidedly one of the most well-known and prolific artists active in
the Republic of China today. Working in sculpture, photography,
cinema, installation, design, music, and architecture, Ai engages political and
cultural criticism to investigate instances of
government cover-ups and corruption, confronting China's stance
on democracy and human rights. Ai often uses aesthetic strategies related to
Conceptual Art as well as readymade objects in the lineage of Marcel Duchamp
(who, along with Andy Warhol, profoundly influenced Ai's artistic practice),
frequently in direct juxtaposition with traditional Chinese materials and
production methods.
Ai’s genitor was the famous Chinese modern poet Ai Qing; the family was
sent to a work camp as a result of his father’s denouncement during the 1957-59
Anti-Rightist Campaign purge, and they were subsequently exiled to Shihezi,
Xinjiang, in far Western China. The family only returned to the capital city in
1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution, after which Ai studied animation
at the Beijing Film Academy and co-founded the avant-garde art group Stars with
fellow artists Ma Desheng, W. Keping, Huang Rui, Li Shuang, Z. Acheng, and Qui
Leilei. He then spent a little over a decade in New York City, where he
attended the Parsons School of Design as well as the Art Students League. Ai
started taking photographs between 1983 and 1993, while living in Manhattan’s
East Village, and in 1993, upon his returned to his homeland, he continued
producing art in Beijing, where he built a studio.
In 2008, Ai was commissioned to cooperate with the prestigious firm
Herzog & de Meuron on the “Bird’s Nest” stadium for the Beijing Olympics;
he later referred to the project as a “pretend smile of bad taste.” In May of
the following year, Ai’s widely-read and influential blog, where he posted
scathing criticisms of Chinese government policies, was shut down. That August,
the artist was beaten by Chinese police for trying to testify for Tan Zuoren,
with whom he had investigated the aftermath—student casualties as well as
poorly constructed buildings and infrastructure—of the devastating
8.0-magnitude earthquake that shook the Sichuan province in May of
2008. Also as a result of his activist work, in 2011, AI was arrested and
held for about 80 days without being charged with any crime. His series
“SACRED,” which premiered in La
Biennale di Venezia directly drew on
his detainment experience (his arrest was loudly protested by governments,
artists, and individuals across the globe).
Forever, 2003, 42 bicycles.
Ai’s breathtaking work has been presented in huge solo exhibitions at
New York’s Brooklyn Museum, Seville’s Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporaneo,
Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne, and Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Institution,
amongst others. He represented Germany at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013, and
he has won multiple international awards, including a doctorate in Arts from
the Maryland Institute College of Art, the Santa Moritz Masters Lifetime
Achievement Award by the luxury goods conglomerate company Cartier, and
the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent of the Human Rights Foundation. Ai
lives and works in Beijing; he is now prohibited from traveling outside of
China.
