New Republic / "Ai Weiwei Artist Overview and Analysis". The central rule that objects closer to the eye must appear larger is being used to showcase an offensive gesture expressing Ai's basic disdain for state power, which is by no means limited to China. He was chosen to represent China at the Venice Biennale (a mark of high honor and geo-political distinction), a development that lifted him into a high-visibility role in the international arena. Ai Weiwei / Instagram. "Ai Weiwei Artist Overview and Analysis". Ai Weiwei — The tree recomposed At the Frederik Meijer Garden and Sculpture Park (Michigan, USA), the Ai Weiwei exhibition (January-March 2017) is an opportunity to approach the representation of the tree in his work. BBC Culture Magazine / The New Yorker / Ai said his father "as a poet, as an artist, [he] worked so hard at first, and it was very impressive...and I think that the only rewarding feeling he could get was to make the toilets so completely clean. Living in China has not been easy … Weiwei is often referred to as China's most famous artist. Ai himself is from this long line of free-thinkers and writers, marginalized both by the right and left. The Han dynasty is considered a defining moment in Chinese civilization. ", "The art always wins. The Guardian / November 22, 2013 Few living artists are as famous as Ai Weiwei. He saw the difference, and refused to conform. Ai's impact on the West is arguably greater than it is in China, where he remains a controversial figure. Xu Qu's political conceptual installations are directly inspired by Ai's. His father was very well-known in China, and had been imprisoned by the Nationalist government before Ai's birth on suspicion of being a Leftist. This investigation was interrupted in 2008 when police broke into his hotel room in Chengdu, and beat him so badly that he was hospitalized with a cerebral haemorrhage. He is viewed as a threat to "harmonious society." When a Syrian refugee in a Greek camp mentioned missing her piano, he had one brought to her and videotaped her performance. In 1981, he moved to the US, studying in piecemeal fashion at various institutions, trying to improve his English. He also met and befriended the beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who had once traveled to China and met Ai's father. Summary of Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei is the most famous Chinese artist living today. March 27, 2015 / [Ai Weiwei] I grew up under Chairman Mao’s rule during the Cultural Revolution. The unstated, but relatively strictly-enforced guidelines were that art should be representational, respectful, and celebrates the lives of everyday people thriving under Communism in a manner consistent with Western Realism - but mostly known internationally as Soviet Socialist Realism. A cultural figure of international renown, Ai Weiwei is an activist, architect, curator, filmmaker, and China’s most famous artist. He also took part in a number of pro-democracy marches and rallies. Delving more deeply into a traditional Chinese practice that he had learned from his father, he spent the last half of that decade making furniture. Ai stated that he had meant to target "Feudalism", explaining that the gate had been built by a Ming Emperor. His work is about risk (personal, professional, and political). Ai Weiwei has been called the most influential artist of our time. Ai Weiwei is the most famous Chinese artist living today. Bicycles have always featured in Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s installations. world-renowned Chinese artist and activist. All Rights Reserved. ©2021 The Art Story Foundation. He’s released music albums. The very first time that Ai used bicycles was in his installation known as Very Yao1 in 2008. A time and place where the more outrageously anti-authoritarian and oppositional the statement, the better. In 2009, Ai Weiwei was arrested and beaten by Chinese police. Members of the general public and the wider art community continue to support him. Video. Born: August 28, 1957; Beijing, China ; Nationality: Chinese; Art Movement: Conceptual Art, Excessivism; Painting School: Stars; Genre: installation; Field: sculpture, architecture, installation, photography; Art institution: Parsons School of Design (Chase School, New York School of Art… After denouncing government corruption and lack of respect for human rights and freedom of speech in China, he was arrested, beaten, placed in isolation and forbidden to travel. May 24, 2010, By Jed Perl / Using his art to address the corruption of Chinese government and their neglect of human rights, but also other politically touchy issues, Ai Weiwei has become a synonym for disobedience and protest art of our times. Ai Weiwei / National Gallery Prague. Its focus is the … His father's poetic artis… I spoke to him to learn more about his art. The Beijiing government still refuses to discuss it, and censors all footage of the event. In 1996, his father passed away. Some of his most recent works are simple actions designed to call attention to the humanitarian crises. The family was exiled when Ai was only one year old. Ai stayed in New York for 11 years, immersing himself in the contemporary art scene and taking photographs of the city, which would later be put together as a work known as the New York Photographs (1983-1993). Open in his criticism of the Chinese government, Ai was famously detained for months in 2011, then released to house arrest. In the same year, he co-curated an exhibition in Shanghai, entitled "F**k off". While in the West, drinking tea (especially from Chinese porcelain) has historically been a status symbol, tea is the everyday drink in China. He became so adept at the game that US blackjack players know him first and foremost as a professional gambler, rather than as an artist. Ai Weiwei on his favorite artists, living in New York and why the government is afraid of him, It's not beautiful: an artist takes on the system, Ai Weiwei: Wonderful dissident, terrible artist, Ai Weiwei swamped by Lego donation offers after ban on use for "political" artwork, Beyond Ai Weiwei: How China's artists handle politics (or avoid them), Ai Weiwei - Dumbass - music video made by Ai to replicate his experiences in prison, Study of Perspective Tiananmen Square (1995). This piece of art consists of two thousand layers of white fabric, and the shape of different continents of the Earth is cut out from this fabric. By Kerry Brougher, Mami Kataoka and Charles Merewether, By Dr Alison Bracker / Ai Weiwei (born in 1957) is the most significant personality of the independent Chinese art … In the early 1980s, Ai relocated to the United States where he studied art, living undocumented in New York for a decade. Smithsonian Magazine / Timidity is a hopeless way forward. Study of Perspective Tiananmen Square was part of a series begun in 1995 and completed in 2003. These include artist Huang Rui, whose works include provocative performances based on China's relationship with the West. Ai Weiwei. Most of his works are forms of activities so that the viewer can explore or interact with what Weiwei is trying to portray in his art (Grant, 2011).Ai Weiwei is a well known Chinese artist and co designer for the Birds Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing of 2008. Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. We began filming in hospitals, quarantine sites, and individual's homes, conducting interviews with doctors, infected patients, volunteers, and urban residents under lockdown. In 2011, the Chinese government arrested and … After the People's Republic of China was founded, Ai Qing was accused again, this time of being a Rightist, during Chairman Mao's anti-intellectual campaign. Content compiled and written by Ruth Epstein, Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors, "Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. In order to understand the impact of this exhibition, it is crucial to know a little bit about the state-sanctioned art of Beijing, dominant since the 1970s. Ai Weiwei is an artist, renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena across today’s geopolitical world. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. In a 2015 striking performance piece, he posed as the lifeless toddler who washed ashore in Turkey. Understandably, antique dealers were outraged, calling Ai's work an act of desecration. August 21, 2012, By Adrian Searle / The son of an exiled political dissident, Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei’s work is inherently political. Cultural Revolution (1966–76): a radical social and political reform movement in China initiated by Mao Zedong in 1965 intended to eliminate “counterrevolutionary” elements in the government. ", "If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain. One of his most controversial art pieces that cause such an impact in the government and the people, is his… In Forever Bicycles, Ai used Shanghai-based Forever Company bicycles to make his massive installation. Ai's work underscores the idea that art may have the power, and even the responsibility, to change society. The entire event was organized through social media. Within a couple of years, he had started to get involved with the unofficial Beijing art scene, and was one of the first members of The Stars. At the same time, it is made out of tea (one smells its pungent odor from afar) setting it apart from anything a Minimalist would make. It resulted in purges of artists and intellectuals and caused massive socioeconomic chaos. This very work presents Ai Weiwei’s opinion on present status of his country in the world (fig.4). In July of 2015 he was finally provided with an international passport. The family had been able to keep only one book, a large encyclopedia - Ai's only source of information and education. His father's poetic artistry and the family's precarious political situation were to have a deep effect on the artist. Ai grew up in the far north-west of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. The family was exiled when Ai was only one year old. Drastic efforts on the part of the government to limit his communication with broad audiences has, somewhat paradoxically, motivated him toward a number of ambitious projects designed to address directly politically sensitive themes in China, such as the internet (subject to government regulations that limit access to many websites, including Google, that many in the world otherwise take for granted). He is also one of the earliest conceptual artists to use social media - Instagram and Twitter, in particular - as one of his primary media. Ai's struggle for freedom of speech and expression sheds light on specific issues that are important in their own right. In order to survive as a child, Ai learned many of the practical skills that he would later apply to his art - such as making furniture and bricks. That act influenced me a lot...So, you know, I was born radical, I did not become radical. As all this was occurring, the Western art world watched in horror and mobilized in his defense with the help of international human rights groups. February 1, 2013, By Fergus Ryan / The museum’s online catalogue lists 249 works by Ai Weiwei alone. It is also about testing the limits of freedom. Woodworking. The intention to separate art from politics is itself a very political intention. Ai Weiwei is the son of writer Gao Ying and poet Ai Qing. 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 what first appears to be a classic tourist snapshot, Ai sticks his middle finger up at Tiananmen Square Gate. September 14, 2015, By Evan Osnos / Weiwei is a conceptual artist and activist, born in China. ", Ai has always been a political activist. ", "Technology is a liberation. Numerous artists working across a range of media, in China and beyond, have been moved by Ai's expressive conceptualism and fearless activism. While his international reputation did not ultimately shield him from harsh punishment, what led to his eventual release was a global awareness of his situation and increasing diplomatic pressure from democratic countries. Outside his mother's home in Beijing, he dropped and smashed a 2000-year old ceremonial urn. October 25, 2015, By Christopher Beam / It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall. In October 2015, for example, when Lego refused Ai a large shipment of blocks (on the grounds that it doesn't endorse political art), hundreds of Ai's followers sent their own Legos to the artist, via mail and official collection points. Art should live in the heart of the people. A 60,000 square-meter venue set to open later this year, it boasts perhaps the finest collection of contemporary Chinese art in the world thanks in part to a massive donation by Swiss collector Uli Sigg. Ai has identified his father as the single most important influence on his life. But in order to be relevant, he says art must be political 2017 May 21 “I don’t see myself as a dissident artist,” he says. Aesthetically, it recalls the glass and steel cubes of Minimalism. As the son of the Chinese poet Ai Quing, who was accused in the Anti-Rightist movement, Ai Weiwei and his family were sent off to live in Shihezi. After studying and working as an artist in the US for twelve years, he returned to live in China again. In 1981, Ai Weiwei moved to the US to study abroad. April 2, 2014, By Christina Larson / But for some, the world had already ended, and artist Ai Weiwei ’s latest documentary, Cockroach, stands as proof of that sentiment. 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