ArtAsiaPacific: Ai Wei Wei At Helsinki China Were you to be flying over Finland, one of the first things you might notice is the profusion of green that covers so much of its landscape. Not the light green hue of pasture and fields, but the deep, dark emerald of pine and spruce. With 65 percent of the country covered in forest, wood is not just an important everyday material, but an element that is deeply embedded in Finnish culture and life. Clearly, then, it is no coincidence that the main theme for Ai Weiwei’s first solo exhibition in Finland is wood. It is also the artist’s first exhibition focused on just one material. The Helsinki Art Museum (HAM), where the exhibition takes place, is located within one of the city’s most iconic buildings—the beloved Tennispalatsi, built originally for the 1940 Summer Olympics. HAM chief curator Erja Pusa and curator Heli Harni worked with Ai to select the 27 works that comprise “Ai Weiwei @ Helsinki,” which include the two recent works Garbage Container (2014) and the impressive, 80-square-meter White House (2015).

The fact that HAM has chosen wood as the common denominator for the exhibited works, rather than a particular theme, is refreshing: the exhibition, in effect, does not pretend to be another “end all be all” presentation of Ai’s oeuvre. It does, however, mean that the uninitiated viewer may find it challenging to grapple with some of Ai’s leitmotifs—namely, his critical take on the destruction of culture for industrial progress, as well as human rights and freedom of speech, to name a few. While there are select wall texts available explaining Ai’s work, they feel more like random snapshots than a coherent narrative. One could perhaps argue that Ai has reached a point where it could be assumed that the average visitor is familiar with at least the broad strokes of his career—such as his interest in the ready-made; his controversial blog; his independent investigation of student deaths caused by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China; his detention by Chinese authorities in 2011; and so on. AI WEIWEI, Garbage Container, 2014, Huali wood, 240 × 160 × 100 cm. Courtesy the artist.

AI WEIWEI, Handcuffs, 2011, Huali wood, 40 × 13 × 2.50 cm. Courtesy the artist. Much of Ai’s work builds on the juxtaposition between object and material. Take, for example, Handcuffs (2011)—which is made of expensive Huali rosewood—and a six-meter-tall tree sculpture literally titled Tree (2010). As forests and old buildings are being razed to make room for modern developments, artworks such as Tree, composed of dead trunks and branches, seek to cobble together what has been lost to remake them anew. Meanwhile, Through (2007), an installation of angular, intertwined antique tables and old temple pillars, explores notions of borders and crossing, but is also significant for its use of the now-extinct Tieli hardwood. Similarly, the capacious White House (2015) is a Qing-dynasty-era building saved from demolition. Painted white, its rafters and beams seem to resemble the skeleton of some great, ancient creature—like leviathan bones bleached from the sun.

This interest in heritage and craftsmanship dates back to Ai’s earliest works, and his appreciation of wood (not just as a medium, but as an important historical element in Chinese culture) resonates aptly with Finnish culture and history. It was the pine tree whose bark was used as substitute bread to stave off famine during the 1918 Finnish Civil War. The birch, meanwhile, was used to make everything from shoes to utensils in the country, before plastic ruled the roost. In Finland, wood is everywhere—from jewelry made by upmarket designer Aarikka to the iconic furniture of Alvar Aalto to even the chemical makeup of the sugar substitute Xylitol in their chewing gum. The Finnish Easter dessert mämmi (an acquired taste, being as it is heavily reliant on rye flour and molasses) is traditionally served in birch-bark bowls. Finns also invented the woodhouse sauna and even Nokia started off as a paper factory.

In fact, Ai’s sprawling 15-by-13-meter Ordos 100 Model—an ambitious and as yet largely incomplete architectural project that the artist collaborated on with Swiss architect firm Herzog & de Meuron—is a veritable symphony of carved pine wood that looks suspiciously like the insides of a standard Helsinki apartment. AI WEIWEI, Ordos 100 Model (2011), Frames (2013), Through (2007) and IOU Wallpaper (2011–13). Installed for “Ai Weiwei @ Helsinki” at Helsinki Art Museum, 2015. Courtesy the artist. Also on view are three Finnish-themed photographs from Ai’s “Study of Perspective” series (1995– ), as well as two videos. The latter includes Dumbass (2013), a music video made as part of the artist’s foray into heavy metal, which riffs on Ai’s experiences of being detained by Chinese authorities. At this point in the show, there doesn’t yet seem to be a comfortable sense of cohesion. It is only made evident when one reaches Garbage Container (2014).

At over two meters tall, the work initially appears to be an expensive, wooden wardrobe, but is, in fact, modelled after a garbage container in China. It is meant as a tragic commentary on rural poverty in China and the hard fate of the some 60 million children who are left behind by parents forced to earn a living far from home. While lucky ones are left in the care of relatives, others are abandoned completely. In 2012, five homeless boys aged 9 to 13 sought shelter inside a garbage container, only to die of carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to light a fire to stave off the cold. The incident was widely reported in the Chinese media and drew parallels to Hans Christian Andersen’s Little Match Girl. The tributary Garbage Container is an elegant work, at once beautiful and despairing. It is evidently no coincidence that the adjacently placed installation, Rebar and Case (2014), created in reference to the Sichuan Earthquake, resembles child-sized coffins.

From this vantage point, the deeply personal connection that Ai is able to make with the viewer is clear—even when working on a large scale, each and every of his pieces make a raw statement that is impossible to ignore. “Art is popcorn for the brain,” declares HAM’s signature tag line, emblazoned on various paraphernalia in the museum gift store. Yet Ai Weiwei’s work is certainly not popcorn. It’s not light and fluffy. Instead, it’s straightforward, solid and honest—like Finnish pine. “Ai Weiwei @ Helsinki” is on view at the Helsinki Art Museum until February 28, 2016. Brooklyn Museum: Ai Weiwei: According to What? Ai Weiwei, 2012. Photo by Gao Yuan Ai Weiwei, 2012. Photo by Gao Yuan Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Profile of Marcel Duchamp in a Coat Hanger, 1986. Wire clothes hanger, hanger: 15 × 11 in. (38.1 × 27.9 cm), frame: 27 × 20 in.

(68.6 × 50.8 cm). Collection of Larry Warsh. © Ai Weiwei. Photo: Tim Nighswander/IMAGING4ART While living in New York between 1983 and 1993, Ai was strongly influenced by the artists Marcel Duchamp and Jasper Johns. Profile of Marcel Duchamp in a Coat Hanger is a layered homage to both artists. Ai borrows two motifs from Duchamp—the readymade everyday object and the self-portrait of the artist in profile. He also makes reference to various works by Johns, who was similarly inspired by Duchamp. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). R itual (detail), 2011-2013. From the work S.A.C.R.E.D., 2011‒13. One of six dioramas in fiberglass and iron, 1483⁄8 x 78 × 601⁄5 in. (377 × 198 × 153 cm). Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. © Ai Weiwei Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957).

S.A.C.R.E.D, a six-part work composed of (i) S upper, (ii) A ccusers, (iii) C leansing, (iv) R itual, (v) E ntropy, (iv) D oubt, 2011‒13. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. © Ai Weiwei In 2011, Ai’s political activism, particularly his criticism of the Chinese government, led to his eighty-one-day imprisonment by Chinese authorities. S.A.C.R.E.D. is the first work Ai created in response to that imprisonment. These six dioramas document the most painful and intimate moments of his detainment, including the moment he was led into his cell, the periods of interrogation, and the daily activities of eating, sleeping, showering, and using the toilet, all under the watchful eyes of two guards. The title connotes religious associations with ritual acts, sacrificial punishment, and perhaps even tomb burials. It is also an acronym. The letters stand for each diorama’s subtitle—Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy, Doubt.

In addition to corresponding to the daily activities represented, these subtitles evoke the life of Christ and the Stations of the Cross. At the same time, the exterior of the cell is reminiscent of Minimalist sculpture, while what we see inside is the most minimal human condition. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Moon Chest, 2008. Seven chests in Huanghuali wood, each: 126 × 63 × 311⁄2 in. (320 × 160 × 80 cm). Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. © Ai Weiwei This installation represents part of a series of eighty-one unique chests built from huali, the precious and highly desirable wood of the Chinese quince tree. The artist has cut four circular openings into each chest, transforming them from functional pieces of furniture into works of art. When the chests are viewed through the center from one end, the openings align to create a play of light and shadow that suggests the phases of the moon. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Straight, 2008–12. Steel reinforcing bars, dimensions variable.

© Ai Weiwei In Straight, Ai uses rebar recovered from the rubble of collapsed schoolhouses following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The artist had every piece of mangled rebar straightened through a laborious process. The large divide in the piece is meant to suggest both a fissure in the ground and a gulf in values. The massive work serves as a reminder of the repercussions of the earthquake and expresses the artist’s concern over society’s ability to start afresh “almost as if nothing had happened.” Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Map of China, 2008. Tieli wood (iron wood) from dismantled temples of the Qing Dynasty (1644‒1911), 633⁄8 x 845⁄8 x 6615⁄16 in. (161 × 215 × 170 cm). Collection of the Faurschou Foundation. © Ai Weiwei This sculpture is a map of China made of salvaged wood and built using traditional Chinese woodworking techniques. The work can be interpreted in a variety of ways.

As a map of China, it symbolizes the political unity of a country made up of many different cultural and historical elements. The monumental scale of the work and the impossibility of viewing its complete outline from one perspective perhaps reflect the difficulty of grasping the full complexity and vastness of China. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Ai Weiwei, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 1983. From the series New York Photographs, 1983‒93. Ninety-eight framed black-and-white photographs, each: 331⁄16 x 331⁄16 (84 × 84 cm). Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. © Ai Weiwei Ai moved to New York in 1983, first living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, before moving to Manhattan. In the decade before he returned to Beijing, he took photographs of his daily life. Some of his photographs document influential individuals, including the composer Tan Dun and the poet Allen Ginsberg. He also captured important events such as the Tompkins Square Park riots in 1988, scenes of political activism, and social problems such as homelessness.

Other photographs reveal Ai’s interest in the artists Jasper Johns, Marcel Duchamp, and Andy Warhol, as well as notable twentieth-century art movements, in particular Dadaism and Surrealism. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). Colored Vases, 2007‒10. Han Dynasty vases and industrial paint, dimensions variable. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. Photo by Cathy Carver This series consists of Han dynasty vases dipped in industrial paints. The faded, richly patterned surfaces of the vases are concealed by the bright modern colors, but the vases retain their original forms. By leaving the vases intact and only altering their surfaces, Ai asks viewers to consider questions of authenticity and the value and meaning of an original artwork. Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957). He Xie, 2010. 3,200 porcelain crabs, dimensions variable. Installation at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., 2012. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio. Photo by Cathy Carver In He Xie, Ai metaphorically represents the restriction of individual expression and freedom of speech in Chinese society.

He xie, literally “river crab,” also sounds like the word for “harmonious,” which is part of the Chinese Communist Party slogan “The realization of a harmonious society.” He xie has thus come to refer to online censorship and the restriction of individual freedom of expression in Chinese society. In November 2010, Chinese authorities announced that Ai’s new studio in Shanghai would be demolished. In response, Ai invited guests via Twitter to a feast of ten thousand river crabs to protest the government’s control of information. Placed under house arrest for his actions, he was unable to attend his own feast. Ai Weiwei: According to What? April 18–August 10, 2014 On Alcatraz, Ai Weiwei raises a voice on dissent - CNN.com On Alcatraz, Ai Weiwei raises a voice on dissent By Madison Park, CNN Updated 5:25 PM ET, Wed October 22, 2014 Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds.

Photos: The art of dissent Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz – A peek through the window bars shows the faces of dissidents assembled from Legos on the floor of a prison work factory on Alcatraz. Hide Caption 1 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Lego faces – The faces of international dissidents are laid out in Ai Weiwei's studio in Beijing. Hide Caption 2 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Legos up close – Ai Weiwei and his team assembled the faces of 176 dissidents using over a million pieces of Legos. This is a close-up of the eyes of Chinese human rights advocate, Liu Xianbin. Hide Caption 3 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Liu Xianbin, assembled from Legos – Liu Xianbin participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and wrote articles advocating human rights. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence. Hide Caption 4 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Ai Weiwei – Ai Weiwei was detained for 81 days in China in 2011 amid a political crackdown.

He remains a vocal critic of the Chinese government and is not permitted to leave the country. Hide Caption 5 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Pussy Riot cell – Ai Weiwei acknowledges Pussy Riot, in which the punk rock members were convicted of "hooliganism" after performing an anti-Putin song in a cathedral in 2012. Hide Caption 6 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Tibetan wing – This installation assembled from Tibetan solar cookers forms a bird's wing to model the tension between freedom and confinement. Hide Caption 7 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Postcards for prisoners – Visitors are encouraged to write postcards to prisoners of conscience around the world. Ai Weiwei designed the postcards based on the flower and birds of the nation. Hide Caption 8 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Writing postcards in Alcatraz dining room – Political prisoners often fear that they and their causes have been forgotten by the outside world. Visitors to Alcatraz are encouraged to write postcards to them.

Hide Caption 9 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Postcards for mail – The curator of the exhibit on Alcatraz says the messages ranging from four-year-olds to university professors have been "deeply moving." Hide Caption 10 of 11 Photos: The art of dissent Cheryl Haines – Cheryl Haines, the curator for the @Large exhibit, worked with Ai Weiwei to bring the works to Alcatraz, in partnership with National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy. Hide Caption Chinese artist Ai Weiwei opens installation on Alcatraz island Exhibit's theme explores themes of imprisonment, dissent It also aims to raise awareness about prisoners of conscience Along with notorious criminals, Alcatraz also imprisoned conscientious objectors and Native Americans It's no coincidence that Ai Weiwei's latest exhibition is located in Alcatraz, a former jail that sits on an isolated island off the San Francisco coast. The Chinese artist and activist explores themes of imprisonment, featuring prisoners of conscience from around the world. It's also familiar territory for Ai, who was detained by Chinese authorities for 81 days in 2011 and still cannot travel out of China.

Visitors to Ai's exhibit, called @Large, can sit in a drab, 8x5 feet concrete cell and listen to the works of dissidents, such as anti-Apartheid singers and anti-Soviet musicians whose poems or songs landed them in prison. Among them is Lolo, a Tibetan singer whose song implores the children of Tibet to "raise the Tibetan flag." Lolo is serving a six-year prison sentence for calling for independence -- a direct challenge to China's rule. In another installation, the image of Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, fashioned out of black, grey, blue and white Lego peers out at visitors. Liu, who called for the end of China's single-party rule, is serving an 11-year prison sentence. Sections of Lego portraits of imprisoned dissidents are laid out in Ai Weiwei's Beijing studio in June 2014. The theme of confinement and suppression runs throughout the former U.S. federal penitentiary. JUST WATCHED MUST WATCH Dissident artist goes 'Gangnam Style' 01:53 Although Alcatraz is better known for holding feared inmates like U.S.

gangster Al Capone, the prison also held Native Americans who balked at mandatory U.S. assimilation policies and conscientious objectors, who refused to serve in the military on political or religious grounds. Ai doesn't back off critiquing the United States, by crediting Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning among the 176 people around the world who have been imprisoned or exiled because of their beliefs or affiliations. He pays tribute to them by forming their faces out of 1.2 million Lego pieces. Contemporary artistic dissent Through his art, Ai declares: "Every one of us is a potential convict." When Ai's exhibit on Alcatraz officially opened in late September, it coincided with mass pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. During that weekend, police in Hong Kong arrested about 70 student protesters, including several of its young leaders, in the mass call for democracy. That protest, fueled by youngsters, is now continuing into its fourth week in Hong Kong. It's important that the work can appeal to the next generation, says Cheryl Haines, the curator of the @Large exhibit.

Some of the artworks are interactive, encouraging viewers to walk, view more closely or even get involved -- especially in one installation where they can write postcards to imprisoned dissidents. "It invigorates the viewers to interact with the work," said Haines, the executive director of FOR-SITE, a foundation which organized the exhibit. They also brought wifi to Alcatraz for the first time so visitors could send Instagrams and Tweets from the island. "It's keeping with the artist's desire to activate the next generation's conversation," Haines said. In a sense, it already has. Protest art has proliferated on the streets of Hong Kong, whether it's calling for democracy or lampooning its chief executive through postcards, paintings and pop-up installations. Symbols of democracy and free speech plaster the walls, highway barriers, bridges and stairways. Umbrellas, which symbolize the Hong Kong protests, dot the roads. Slogans are painted on posters hanging from prominent bridges -- suggesting the political power of art. Inside a prison cell As Ai is still unable to leave China, he and his team constructed the pieces in their studio.

He then sent three teams to the United States to erect the seven art installations inside Alcatraz's dining room, labor building, the psychiatric observation cells, hopsital and inside the cell block. The sound installation on Alcatraz encourages visitors to sit inside cells and listen to spoke word, poetry and music by people who have been imprisoned for expressing their beliefs. Perhaps the most haunting of exhibits is "Stay Tuned," where the voice of dissent singing or reciting a poem or speech booms inside the small, isolated prison cells. Housed inside Alcatraz Cellblock A, there's a haunting chill within the concrete mass. Each prison cell behind chipped white steel bars contains just a solitary stool and a stained white sink. Some of the cells in Block A were used for solitary confinement. Visitors can walk inside each of the 12 cells, which represent the imprisonment of dissidents like Russia's Pussy Riot, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Robben Island Singers, who were anti-Apartheid singers. They can sit inside the barren concrete cell and listen to their voices. One visit Eileen Kurahashi, sat inside each of them, closing her eyes shut. "It's a powerful access to something so tragic and breathtaking," she said.

The voice of dissident plays in a loop -- but the sound remains confined into a prison reminding visitors of the cost of free expression. · October 15, 2012 · Now showing at both Mary Boone Gallery locations, in Chelsea and on Fifth Avenue, with new works. Downtown, the highlight is an installation made of twisted steel rebar salvaged from schools in Sichuan, China, that collapsed during the May 2008 earthquake due to shoddy construction (a fact covered up by the Chinese government). The space uptown, meanwhile, presents an installation of 2,500 porcelain crabs, a reference to a rally the artist held to protest the government's demolition of his Shanghai studio (supporters were treated to a feast of 10,000 crabs).

Ai Weiwei meditates on freedom in Alcatraz show Ai Weiwei meditates on freedom in Alcatraz show Noah Berger Share View photos A visitor examines "With Wind," an installation by Chinese artist Ai WeiWei that is part of @Large: Ai WeiWei on Alcatraz on September 27, 2014 in San Francisco, California (AFP Photo/Noah Berger) More Alcatraz is perhaps the world's most famous prison. And Ai Weiwei is arguably China's best known artist. Now they have come together in a viscerally powerful show in the notorious former jail. Visitors to the island prison set in San Francisco Bay can browse seven multi-media pieces, several referencing Tibetan independence campaigners but others including Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. The "@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz" exhibition, which opened at the weekend and runs through next April, "raises questions about freedom of expression and human rights that resonate far beyond this particular place," a spokesman said. "Folks come out to the island all the time to Alcatraz and they hear about the gangsters, they hear about the imprisonment. But sometimes ..

visitors don't get the deep meaning of why they're visiting a former jail," said Michelle Gee. "The Ai Weiwei exhibit brings a contemporary take to this and allows people really to take a deep dive and think about what it means to have freedom what it means for equality," added the US National Park Service spokeswoman. The show is divided into seven installations, allowing visitors to see parts of the former prison they would not usually have access to. "With Wind" depicts a huge vibrantly-colored dragon: normally a symbol of mythical power, but which for Ai "represents not imperial authority, but personal freedom. Everybody has this power," according to the show's notes. - Snowden, Manning, chanting - "Trace" presents pictures of 176 figures jailed or exiled for their beliefs, including Snowden and Manning, but also nearly 40 Chinese cases, 26 from among 33 countries represented. The portraits are made out of Lego blocks. "Refraction" consists of an enormous metal wing, but in place of feathers, the artwork bristles with reflective panels originally used on solar cookers in Tibet.

"Stay Tuned" is an audio exhibit in 12 cells, where visitors can listen to the words and music of figures including pro-independence Tibetan singer Lolo, Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot and South Africa's Robben Island Singers. "Illumination" comprises two tiled chambers through which resonate the sound of Tibetan and Native American chanting, while "Blossom" consists of ceramic flowers set in sinks and other hospital ward fixtures. Finally in "Yours Truly" visitors are invited to write postcards of messages to those featured in the "Trace" exhibit. Tourists were impressed, on its first weekend on display in San Francisco. "It's making me think about how one or two people make a stand for what they believe in," said Australian tourist Jenny Earney. "This is really cool, just like the experience of being actually in a cell and listening to the words or the songs of somebody that's been persecuted in the past," said David Connors, a San Francisco resident. "It's very visceral seeing the walls and the decrepit nature of the cell blocks here," he added.

The show's curator, Cheryl Haines, she was inspired by meeting Ai and by meeting the artist turned activist, who was held under house arrest for 81 days. "We sat together and I said, 'Weiwei I'm sure this has been an ordeal for you and is there any small thing I can do?' And he said, 'You can bring my work to a broader audience'," she said. "The themes of @Large are quite broad and ones that I believe interest us all. Basic human rights, freedom of expression, our individual responsibility and communication and what an important role it plays in creating a just society," she added. The Alcatraz show opened at the weekend, as protests in Hong Kong built into what has been dubbed the "Umbrella Revolution," in which thousands have ignored calls to end the action in support of free elections. Reblog Ai Weiwei 'sLargest Ever Show in Berlin - artnet News Ai Weiwei, Darling Dissident, Presents Largest Ever Show in Berlin Spanning 32,300 Square Feet The Chinese artist’s latest show is a super-sized experience.

April 3, 2014 Ai Weiwei (2012) © Gao Yuan That Ai Weiwei ’s largest-ever show would take place in Germany might strike some as odd. His major traveling exhibition, According to What?, will touch down at the Brooklyn Museum later this month. But the Berlin debut of Evidence, arguably much more significant in its tracing of Ai’s most recent work, is no coincidence. His first major museum show was at Munich’s Haus der Kunst in 2009. He holds a professorship at Berlin’s University of the Arts. And he’s in the process of building a subterranean studio in Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg. Germany remains in Ai’s mind a sort of second home. The Berlin show is vast, Ai’s largest ever, spanning 32,300 square feet in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Most of the works are new, tracing the time since his relationship with the government went sour ahead of the 2008 Olympics.

They also tend to take a more personal tone, playing up (for better or worse) the celebrity status that he has garnered, particularly since his arrest, and which has since clouded much of the judgments of his oeuvre. Some older, rarely-seen pieces like One Man Shoe (1987) from his very first show at New York’s Ethan Cohen also crop up. More or less, though, 2008 is a central jumping off point. Ai’s efforts to identify the more than 5,000 children who died in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province due to shoddy construction—and whose names scroll past in a newspaper-column width stream of Chinese characters on a old laptop screen—remain important and revelatory. Likewise, the direct connection made by the many pieces of steel rebar from the earthquake’s wreckage that make up Forge Bed (2008–2012). The Chinese government had attempted to keep not only the number of victims secret but their names as well, leading Ai and volunteers to visit the region or contact families in hopes of gathering a comprehensive list.

It was these efforts, as well as his pre-Olympics Guardian op-ed that most fervently spurred on Chinese efforts to silence the artist, which in 2011 came to a head. Ai Weiwei, Very Yao (2009-2014) © Ai Weiwei. Fotos © Mathias Völzke Enter 81 (2013): An exact replica of the “cell” in which Ai was held for 81 days in 2011. The room’s walls and furniture are covered in white packing foam, creating a kind of DIY suicide-watch chamber. Only the floor— dark wood planks, each separated by a brass strip—is left hard and pigmented. Bits of green and gold wallpaper peak out from beneath the white layer here and there, a brass number “1135” hangs on the door, a semi-ornate chair covered in plastic wrap, and two others that look straight out of a conference center, suggest that, rather than a prison, we’re in a converted section of a rather run-down hotel.

(The Chinese government are indeed alleged to use sections of otherwise innocuous hotels as so-called ‘black-jails’ for dissidents and political prisoners.) As is suggested by the show’s title, evidence is what especially Ai Weiwei ’s recent work provides. As Westerners, we’re lucky enough to be able to pick up the New York Times and read quite plainly about the China he seeks to expose. Thus the evidence provided in Ai’s art is all too easily met by either a general blasé, a focus on materiality and process, or an individualization and particularization of the artist’s personal suffering. However, within 81, the anywhere-ness of hotel furnishings and layouts give even a Western viewer the ability for a slightly more affectively-oriented relationship to the work. Ai’s guards covered the walls of his prison in white foam a seeming attempt to anonymize the chamber (and likely to amplify the florescent lighting left on 24/7). That this “cell” was differentiated by its cover in foam could not be more appropriate to Ai’s oeuvre.

Pacing the rest of the exhibition’s 18 rooms, the surface comes up again and again as a central marker used in unpacking the disparity between reality, presentation, and belief. In a similar move, Ai takes to cultural artifacts, giving them a fresh lick of paint or a good sanding. The works demonstrate just how easy it is in an authoritarian system to change accepted narratives both grand and minute. Ai Weiwei, Han Dynasty Vases with Auto Paint (2014) © Ai Weiwei. Foto © Mathias Völzke Ai’s newest works for the show, Han Dynasty Vases with Auto Paint (2014), are exemplary in this regard. They step forward Ai’s long-running use of Neolithic vases in his practice, beginning with the iconic early work Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995). The Coloured Vases question historical authenticity and historicity in a country like China where monuments are routinely torn down rather than restored to be replaced by replicas and ancient, whole city blocks leveled for new construction. Han Dynasty Vases with Auto Paint instead shakes the core of China’s current politico-economic narrative.

Using the most popular colors chosen by government officials and executives for the German luxury cars in which they prefer to be chauffeured, Ai points at what might be called the growth-myth surrounding China today. Market analysts cite the country’s buoyant GDP, exemplified by these German automobiles (and the growing number of middle-class car owners as well). International agencies and laymen alike point to improving social conditions, even going as far as to suggest that Ai Weiwei’s ability to exist—or at least to not have fallen among the vast number of individuals the country executes each year—is a sign of improvement. But, like the paint, these are only facades of the real China. One might argue that there is an inevitable trickledown effect and that progress of any kind should be lauded rather than condemned. But Ai’s vases serve to suggest that this simply isn’t the case and that instead the façade only allows progress in social relations to stagnate at best and potentially to deteriorate. Ai Weiwei, Stools (2014) © Ai Weiwei.

Fotos © Reschke, Steffens & Kruse, Berlin/Köln The new vases are, to an extent, a mirror image of the revisionist history embodied by Table and Chest with stripped chairs (2007). These works fill a room on the opposite side of the exhibition and create what’s perhaps Ai’s rendition of the Cultural Revolution. In the series, by sanding off, stripping, a mere millimeter of patinaed surface on each of the over 300 year old pieces of furniture, the chairs lose both their economic value and their intellectual status as antiquities. In metaphorical terms their structures are returned to a ahistorical state, ready to be recast to some new ideology-engendering purpose—or just needing to be thrown out completely. More than 6,000 stools from the Ming and Qing dynasties fill that center of the Ai exhibition in the Martin-Gropius-Bau’s famed Lichthof and represent the Ai’s true subjects and intended audience. Each stool appears as if a unique stand-in for its former owner, marked by worn-away color, nicks and cuts, modifications made to seats, and grime.

Only from above, on the museum’s second floor balconies can the scale of Stools (2014) be fully appreciated. From that height, each stool’s particularities fade into an organized, pixilated whole, like a washed out Richter Farben painting. It demonstrates the very difficulty in taking Ai Weiwei’s situation, indeed, his art, and trying to use it to understand his country in its totality. What relevance does one slash on one stool leg have to its singular, structural integrity, never mind the spirit of the whole? Ai Weiwei, Diaoyu Islands (2014) © Ai Weiwei. Foto © Mathias Völzke Ai Weiwei may for some still “play a central role in how we gain insight into modern-day China,” as Peter Pakesch wrote in Galerie Urs Meile and JRP Rinier’s 2007 compendium on the artist’s then-recent work, but I would venture that for the majority who watched the broadcasts from the 17 different international news stations at the Martin-Gropius-Bau yesterday, Ai is a celebrity, a figment of pixels and glass, ink and paper.

To the degree that is the case, his public’s ability to map his micro-experience onto the macro of China as a whole has diminished by the lack of his presence. In our digital, social media driven age, one wouldn’t think that eliminating a person’s ability to be physically present would have much effect on their change-producing power. As some of the taxi drivers interviewed in the video that accompanies Ai’s crystal, Taxi Window Crank (2012) point out, the government’s order that drivers remove hand cranks for passenger windows in order to prevent patrons from throwing protest flyers out the windows while passing Tiananmen Square during the National Party Congresses likely had very little impact on the amount of criticism flowing through the web and, by proxy, the collective consciousness. Likewise, Ai Weiwei has never been more active on Twitter. That’s a great method of raising awareness and of disseminating 140 character-long ideas. But Twitter and even YouTube are weak in their ability to foster organized collectivities that remain stable over the long-term. Networks of face-to-face contact are, by and large, still required. The Chinese government has been hopelessly unsuccessful in their efforts to silence Ai by taking his passport.

But their efforts have had unintended consequences: namely this world celebrity-ization. That, if anything, has been the Chinese government’s crowning achievement. “Free Ai Weiwei” remains an important message, moniker, and goal. But like taking his vases paint as their full material value, stopping there largely misses the larger point of his efforts and, indeed, the point of the works that put him under surveillance in the first place. Ai Weiwei, Circle of Animals (2011) © Ai Weiwei. Fotos © Mathias Völzke Documenting the Story of Ai Weiwei | Who's Afraid of Ai Weiwei? | FRONTLINE | PBS Documenting the Story of Ai Weiwei Documenting the Story of Ai Weiwei ...behind the scenes with filmmaker Alison Klayman 为了看这篇文章翻译中文, 请点击 这里 去Alison Klayman的网站。 Alison Klayman is the director of the upcoming documentary, "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry." Based in China since 2006, she is the Beijing correspondent for Global Radio News and her stories have also appeared on NPR, AP Television, Voice of America and the CBC.

(Follow her film's progress on Facebook and Twitter .) After two years and over 200 hours of footage, I know the world of Ai Weiwei. My project will eventually become a feature film , but it all started just after the Beijing Olympics, two years into my stay in China. My friend Stephanie Tung invited me to make a short film about an art show she was curating: 10,000 photographs taken by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei while he was living in New York City in the 1980s. Klayman and Ai Weiwei So I began filming Ai Weiwei in December 2008 and quickly got to know him through the stories he recounted about living in New York as a youth -- something I could relate to as a young American who's also now living in a foreign country. We talked about the evolution of his political consciousness, from his childhood in domestic exile with his father (renowned poet Ai Qing) to his decision to return to China in 1993 and remain a Beijing resident and Chinese citizen. “Sometimes China can feel like the Wild West, where you can show up at a police station with cameras rolling and get away with it for an hour.

Until they stop you.” That week we first met, writer and activist Liu Xiaobo had been arrested for circulating the Charter 08 online. (He was sentenced to 11 years in prison, on the charge of "suspicion of inciting subversion of state power." In 2010, still in jail, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.) And that was the first time I asked Weiwei a question that I would repeatedly ask him over the months that followed: "How is it you can openly speak your mind without serious consequences?" Soon after, Weiwei invited me to participate as a cameraperson in his "Citizens' Investigation." He wanted to find out the names of the more than 5,000 students who died in the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake, although he recognized there would be some setbacks in having a non-Chinese volunteer. It was then I realized that my place would be better served in documenting his story, rather than just the earthquake project. Internet cat-and-mouse games Weiwei's popular blog, launched in 2005, was shut down around the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan earthquake.

So he turned to Twitter and became even more of an Internet addict. The blog had been hosted on Sina.com, a site within China's firewall and therefore under the government's control. During his four years blogging in Chinese, Weiwei would often find government censors had removed a post. His response was to simply re-post it again. When Weiwei first lost his blog, he turned to a micro-blogging site, also hosted within the firewall (think of it as a Chinese version of Twitter); when his posts grew too controversial, authorities simply shut off his account. His followers tried to mislead authorities, creating multiple user names like "WeiweiAi" or "Weiweiwei" to mask which account was the real Ai Weiwei. Eventually, he moved his social media activities out of the firewall entirely to Twitter (with the handle @aiww ). While the site is "blocked" in China, it can be accessed through a VPN, which logs your local computer onto the Internet through a remote server in another country. This is called "jumping over the firewall" (翻墙). Once you take this step to access the Internet through a server outside of China, you bypass the government's restrictions.

When Weiwei wanted to release his own documentaries to followers in China -- films about the parents of Sichuan's earthquake victims, or his beating by local police in Sichuan's capital -- he knew he'd have to be one step ahead of censors. So he developed a functional, but complicated, system to distribute his films online. Each video is available for download as an innocuously labeled file on a Chinese file-sharing site (similar to Yousendit or Rapidshare). He then compiles these and pastes the links into a Google document. Finally, he tweets the Google document's link to his followers. He updates them every few days depending on whether the links are blocked or Internet censors remove the files. Celebrity, East and West Over the two years I spent with Weiwei, I witnessed his rising celebrity. Every day a small parade of foreign journalists, or local reporters from fashion and culture magazines, or curators and camera crews visited his home, seeking his opinion on China's future as if he was an oracle. When I went to his solo show "So Sorry" in Munich, which opened in October 2009, it was the first time I appreciated the reach of his stardom in the West.

In China, I was used to finding Weiwei in the small orbit of his home and nearby studio spaces, without really observing strangers having a chance to react to him, except the reporters (and people online, of course). But in Germany, his police beating and subsequent surgery was top news, and large crowds came to see his art show. His fame in Germany was due to two events: his collaboration with Swiss architects Herzog and DeMeuron to design the "Bird's Nest" Beijing Olympics stadium, and his high-profile 2007 project for Documenta 12, a prestigious art exhibit held every five years in Kassel, Germany. For that project -- "Fairytale" -- he brought 1001 Chinese to Kassel to live at Documenta during its run. They were a cross-section of rural and urban, young and old, all responding to an open online application process. "Fairytale" is in many ways the predecessor to the Sichuan "Citizens' Investigation," and it was the first time Weiwei put an idea on his blog and saw the enormous impact of the Internet.

Ai Weiwei -- a bellwether Ai Weiwei's interplay with authorities can be seen as a bellwether of how much China has changed, and how far it has to go, in terms of freedom of expression. No scene captures this better than the day he visited the Jinniu district police station in Chengdu on April 6, 2010. The complaint he filed about his injury at the hands of the police was ultimately rejected; the police denied they hit him. At the same time, they respectfully listened and recorded his testimony with two witnesses present. They also allowed him to walk into the station with several cameras to document the event, something rather unimaginable, even in the United States. But that isn't the full story. About 40 minutes after we arrived at the station, officials appeared who spoke English and asked me and New Yorker correspondent Evan Osnos to step into another room. They checked our documents and told us that we would have to erase our footage since we didn't have permission to film the police. My footage survived because I secretly switched my HDV tape with a blank one.

They filmed the camera screen as I turned on the color bars and "deleted" the footage, satisfied to have proof they had carried out their orders. The January 2011 demolition of Weiwei's Shanghai studio (read The New York Times article ) is another example of the fine line he's walking and the uncertain future. A local mayor in the Jiading district on Shanghai's outskirts pressured Weiwei to build a studio in the area to attract other artists. Weiwei spent more than $1 million on the new studio; it was even larger than his home studio in Beijing. But after the two-year project was done, he heard from Shanghai authorities that the studio would be demolished because he didn't file all the proper permits. Weiwei told foreign reporters that he suspected it had something to do with documentary projects he had filmed about dissidents in Shanghai. The local mayor apologized profusely to Weiwei and compensated him for more than the amount of money he had spent. Why isn't he in jail? After spending the last two years following Weiwei, I still don't know exactly the answer to that question. Events over those two years show that Weiwei is certainly not immune to government persecution.

When I first started filming, his blog was still running, with minor government interference; he'd never been put under house arrest or injured by police; none of his buildings had ever been demolished; and he was never barred from leaving the country. I guess my answer to the question is perhaps succinctly summarized by magazine publisher and popular Chinese-language blogger Hung Huang. She told me, "China isn't China until it's China." She explained that the relative freedom of daily life, and people's recent ability to acquire the commodities and luxuries they want and to live without government interference, doesn't prepare you for that moment when the authorities do descend. Sometimes China can feel like the Wild West, the kind of place where you can show up at a police station with cameras rolling and get away with it for an hour. Until they stop you. This means, essentially, that Weiwei is not in jail until he is in jail. I hope that this story, and my film, can help raise awareness for Ai Weiwei in case that day ever comes.

Question: Artist Ai Weiwei is resident, in 2014, in what country?
Answer: People's Republic of China