IN ADMIRATION BEFORE AN ARTIST

When we arrived at the Academy of Arts, the queue was not that daunting and although I was somewhat reticent, Pierrette suggested that as we were there, we visited the exhibition at once. My Icom card worked wonders and we sailed through. The crowds though were there and I would think that not only will this exhibition be a block buster but it may well change people’s way of thinking.
I have come across Ai Weiwei's work (1957-) often over the years and saw a photographic exhibition long before I created my blog. He is an artist that fascinates me. I had hoped to see his work when I was in China but never found his studio. Probably the time he was in jail.

But to start with, in the courtyard there was an installation of trees. Ai’s trees are made from parts of dead trees that are brought down from the mountains of southern China and sold in the markets of Jingdezhen, Jiangxi province. Ai transports these to his studio in Beijing where they are made into trees.

As he says, “it’s just like trying to imagine what the tree looked like”.

Held together by hidden joints and large industrial bolts, the trees look natural from a distance and artificial from close up. "Tree" has been likened to the modern Chinese nation, where ethnically diverse peoples have been brought together to form ‘One China’, a state-sponsored policy aimed at protecting and promoting China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. This may be very true, but Ai Weiwei makes strong political statements.

With a promise never to be silenced, Ai has become known for his pithy, poetic words on freedom and creativity.

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiwei

Is Ai Weiwei the most quotable artist on earth today ? I saw his quotes in a video some years ago which were very provocative so it makes sense that he is so quotable. Today for sure, he is the world’s most famous artist dissident. Ai has founded his expansive career on speaking out – against the oppression experienced by his father, a poet exiled by the Chinese Communist government for 20 years, and against the censorship that the artist’s generation still faces.

These are just some examples of his work....the entrance to the first gallery was magnificent....

Forever Bicycles - installation, 2014 : Very Yao

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HANGING Man - 1985	"I think Duchamps is the most, if not the only influential figure in my so called art-practice" Ai Weiwei to Tim Marlow 2015

Fragments, 2005

Iron Tielewood, table, chairs, parts of beams from the dismantled temples of the Qing Dynasty (1614-1911)

See above

Seeing all aspects of life and politics as inseparable from his art, Ai’s activism is done with poignant, poetic precision – the names of over 5000 children who died in Sichuan’s 2008 earthquake, for example, exhibited quietly next to 90 tonnes of steel bars collected from their collapsed schools (Straight, 2008-2012). I knew some of the photographs and they brought back very vivid memories of that disaster.

Just one panel of the Nmes of the Student Earthquake Victims FOund by the Citizens' Investigation, 2008-11

Bold acts like that have seen Ai Weiwei beaten and detained, but he remains firm. “I have a responsibility to let other people know… if I have to sacrifice I would have no regrets,” he said recently. When he was in jail, he produced work - later - . Could you call them « experiences » ?

Straight, 2008-12 Steel reinforcing bars

Ai took to exceptionally purposefuly and powerful blogging and tweeting after the devastating Sichuan Earthquake on the 12th May 2008 which left over 90,000 people dead or missing and rendered another 11 million homeless. His pleas to the government that the school had been badly constructed met no response. Dismayed by the government refusal to release information to the public, Ai visited the earthquake sites and took photos. He also created a Citizens' Investigation Centre seeking to identify the names of the schoolchildren killed in the earthquake. Ai's political engagement came at a high price as we know.
He aso documented the quality of the collapsed school by collection and using the steel bars in STRAIGHT. He employed craftsmen to heat and straighten each piece of quake twisted steel, manually restoring them to their pre-disaster condition. Even when he was in prison, the craftsmen continued their work and frankly you probably would never know that these bars had been in an earthquake.

The two side walls are covered with the names of the children

All his works are statements……

Combine that promise never to be silenced and gift for self-expression with a love of social media and its intrinsic democracy, and what do you get? Weiwei-isms, and lots of them. He is certainly not timid and speaks out when interviewed, on Internet, videos etc. Now released from prison, the question I ask myself, will he be permitted to return to China without being thrown back into confinement?

The Artist's destroyed Shanghai studio set in a wooden frame - 2012

part of the frame

Concrete and brick rubble from the artist's destroyed Shanghai studio set in a wooden frame, 2012

Porcelain Crabs - 3000 pieces, 2011 - while he was in house arrest and prevented from attending his own party, 800 guests prepared food and 10,000 local river crabs. He was able from afar to see the the ceremony broadcast internationally