Artist in focus: Ai Weiwei

November 2010

Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei and his family were exiled from 1959-78 to the deserts of Xinjiang, far-western China because his father was deemed a dissident. Today, Ai Weiwei is the internationally recognised agent provocateur of contemporary Chinese art. Compelled by the ultimate goal of freedom of expression, thoughts and ideas, the Chinese conceptual artist, architect, photographer, and curator - loathed and loved for his human rights activism - is a courageous voice in China today.

In 2003 Ai WeiWei was asked to collaborate with the celebrated Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron to enter the design competition for the Beijing Olympic national stadium. Their dazzling and technically challenging proposal for a sinuous steel-lattice stadium, which resembled a giant bird's nest, won and catapulted WeiWei to international fame.

The artist's social commentary of communist China is inextricable from his artwork. Among his best-known works is the 1996 Breaking of Two Blue-and-White Dragon Bowls, a performance piece in which he shatters two antique vases to reflect the vandalism by the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. Then there is the Study of Perspective series (1995-2003) in which he photographs landmarks such as the White House and Tiananmen Square with his upraised middle finger in the foreground.

As an antique connoisseur, Ai Weiwei is intrigued by innovative possibilities of the time-honoured aesthetics of antiques and classical objects. Table With Two Legs (2005) was produced through the disassembly of a fine classical table from the Qing dynasty, followed with its reassembly using highly sophisticated joinery techniques - the result is a form that is no longer functional. Transformed from its original pragmatic role into an arresting and purely aesthetic object, the Table with Two Legs compels viewers to contemplate the nature as well as the potential of art.

Ai Weiwei's limitless vision for the potential of art can be witnessed now at London's Tate Modern. For the past two years 1,600 artisans have worked to hand craft 100 million sunflower seeds with a combined weight of 150 tonnes and now fill the Turbine Hall. The mass project encourages viewers to walk over the ceramic sunflower seeds, the seed chosen to represent the food which was a source of comfort to the Chinese people during famines under Mao. While audience members crunch over the delicate husks, one is encouraged to see Ai Weiwei’s associations with mass production, craftsmanship and the destruction of Western consumption.  

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