The Work Of Ai Weiwei As Socio-Political Art

Ai Weiwei is an artist born in 1957 in Beijing, who currently lives and works in Berlin. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai exploits a wide range of media in his quest to create new ways of examining society and its values. In 2010 Art Review listed Ai Weiwei as number one on their Top 100 of most powerful people in the art world. Ai Weiwei is today one of the leading Chinese artists. He works in an astounding variety of artistic fields, from the fine arts to architecture to filmmaking to literature. Some of his most well-known works, outside of the fine art world, are his efforts in the ‘Bird’s nest’ Beijing 2007 Olympic stadium, and his blog. Before it was shut down by the Chinese authorities in May 2009, he had a popular blog on which he posted thousands of documentary images of his life alongside poignant social and political commentaries. He now uses his Twitter and Instagram to express himself in a similar manner. Ai has had a long, struggle-filled journey to becoming the conceptual artist in a position of cultural influence and international claim he currently is.

Ai Weiwei went through a childhood of poverty. His father, Ai Qing, was at that time on his way to becoming one of the greatest Chinese poets of the 20tht century. He was excluded from society during Mao’s regime due to the Chinese government not approving of his poetry. As a young man, Ai Weiwei experienced a decade of aimlessness and anonymity, swallowed up by New York when he lived there during the 1980s and upon his return to Beijing in the early 1990s, there was a sense of alienation from the Chinese art world. His irregular childhood and early life predominate in his current way of life, as even now his situation is still in some ways unstable. The eviction of his studio is hanging in the air and Chinese officials have an ‘interest’ in his outspoken on Chinese society via his internet activism, spontaneous protests and campaigning activities for human rights and freedom of expression in China. Consequences of this over time have been the surveillance of his studio, the hacking of his emails, his bank account being monitored, his blog shut down and even him being taken into custody and being deprived of his passport. Ai felt alienated from the Chinese art world as his practice failed and continues to fail, to fit into the budding narrative of recent Chinese art history, which is structured around such categories as ‘cynical realism’, political pop’, ‘kitschy art’, ‘conceptual photography’ and ‘cartoon art’. These ‘movements’ were man-made by a small group of art critics, curators and gallerists whose interests were bound together in such self-definitions, rather than emerging out of any artistic or political beliefs. The avant-garde legacy of modernity has been a big inspiration 5 for the approach of these contemporary artists and critics. However, their avant-garde attitude is aimed more at ideology on a purely superficial level, rather than the ideas, understanding, values and discourse of art. This has created an extremely rigid movement-based art-historical dogma in China. It underestimates and excludes practices that are not originated in such a value system and contrastingly overemphasizes the importance of these certain groups of artists, whose work can be interpreted within such a narrow framework. This leaves little to no room for the more conceptual, contemplative and less easily defined practices.

Ai Weiwei’s work refuses easy categorization within the identified and accepted ‘trends’. The mid1990s in China saw a so called peak of ‘avant-garde’ artists whose work was intterpretted in a political and ideological light. The social climate was conservative and alert to anything that did not conform to the ideological hegemony of the state, creating a heightened level of tension between the contemporary art circle, wich Ai Weiwei was a prominent member of and the state throughout the 1990s. Ai chose not to subscribe to the existing rules and instead gradually developed his own individual system that is in all ways, such as logistically, artistically and intellectually, independent of the Chinese mainstream preferences and practices. Ai has openly been inspired by philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, on which he has commented “He’s so articulate in his expression. He tried to crack the absolute truth there. The effort, the repeated effort, made all his practice become one - just one act”.

A similar effort can be seen in Ai Weiwei’s art and more specifically, architectural projects, such as the ‘Bird’s nestt’ in 2008, of which he was the artistic consultant. Sunflower seeds ‘Sunflower seeds’ is an installation that Ai Weiwei specifically created for the Turbine Hall of Tate in London. It consists of millions of porcelain objects individually handcrafted and painted to look like real sunflower seeds, seemingly a landscape of seeds when arranged in the Hall. “The idea not only challenges the space [turbine hall] through the number of objects but also because it offers a more psychological and social meaning”. The artwork is about seeing the potential of individuality, which exactly what the Chinese state is criticized for not 6 doing. They are all handpainted by individuals, which emphasizes their uniqueness and individuality. It is so quiet, looks so minimal, and the space of the hall remains otherwise untouched. They are sunflower seeds, but nothing can grow from them. You see something that is not what you think. It is so much more and has so many more layers of meanings. The work reflects on that fact that each seed is individual yet at the same time looks identical to the others. And when they are accumulated in this large number, they become something else. “You see it and you don’t see it because it disappears through its massiveness”. According to Ai Weiwei, the meaning of the work has nothing to do with its appearance and that the understanding of the process also goes against its appearance. This results in what the viewer sees not being what it means, and “if what you see is not what it means, then there’s a struggle there”.

Comparing this to the regimen of China, which Ai is outspokenly a rebel of, at first thought, it may function as either portrayal or projection. This piece of art operates in a way that it depicts positivity and inspiration in illuminating the potential of individuality in each seed, yet crushes this thought through the chosen medium, which is porcelain. These millions of artifacts, though unique, are unable to grow and become individual sunflowers. Ai Weiwei is in actuality portraying the issue of loss of and uniqueness, due to the construction of artifacts, comparable to the tight control Chinese keep over the population of China. They all have the potential of beautiful individuality, yet fail to become it. Ai Weiwei hereby criticizes relationship of power between Chinese officials and the people, and the people’s unableness or unwillingness to realize that they themselves may be like these porcelain seeds, making his work one of portrayal. Though he takes a conceptual approach, he engages directly with objects, which are often culturally specific. He views contemporary China as readymade, the various cultural artifacts that the challenges and subverts