Download - Guggenheim - Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei

Ai WeiweiStudy of Perspective

Photo Series 1995-2003



First thoughts: • Adiba: He’s flipping off all this

art and architecture. He’s maybe obnoxious.

• Azalea: He’s very blunt.• Jaylin: He’s mad at things

people usually don’t get mad at.• Jen: He’s targetting things

people lil.e

• .• .• .• .



First thoughts: • Artan: He doesn’t care about

people’s opinions. He does what he wants!

• Adrianna: Showing to these highly respected places and showing freedom of expression. Most of the structures has positive connotations….he’s being devil’s advocate.

• Promia: Has little regard for the consequences of his actions. Art is about SPEAKING OUT.

• Destiny: Not everything has to be huge, it can be a simple sign.

• Marco: These objects have no value. Except the value we give

them.



HOMEWORK:Take a photograph that shows disrespect towards an icon of oppression (personal, politcal, or otherwise). Be prepared to discuss your work and back it up with discussion.

What are icons of oppression in our city?

The building with holding cells at Canal St. (or Atlantic Ave) Christopher Columbus Statues

Trump TowerThe Charging Bull and Fearless Girl

(Random angry white lady who hates how Dominican girls fold clothes.)Police Officers (depending on the person…) Some abuse power

Angry racist people on the i-95 freewaySoda-drinking white guy who ran away from me and my friends in FL.


What is “Oppression?” :

prolonged cruel or unjust treatment or control:(Slavery, forced deportation, racism, SYSTEMIC Racism, dictatorships, genocide, laws that exclude peoples)

What are icons of oppression in our city?

Danisa: Trump Tower.Adrianna: The Christopher Columbus

statuesPromia: Columbus AveAidan: Madison Ave?

Hamilton Heights? Police Officers? Stations?

Promia: Ellis IslandIngrid: Religious institutions

Gracie Mansion (Mayor’s home turf)Dept offices for food stamps,

documentation.NYCHA Housing


Oppression: (to Oppress) When you discriminate against someone/thing. To disregard others’ feelings or beliefs.

Adrianna: There’s definitely some people who

are more oppressed than others, like if they have an

abuser or something.

Danisa: There’s a difference between

oppression and bullying. Oppression is more

systematic…not just a single person.

Ai Weiwei

Study of Perspective –Tiananmen SquarePhotograph1995-2003

In what first appears to be a classic tourist snapshot, Ai sticks his middle finger up at Tiananmen Square Gate. Also known as the "Gate of Heavenly Peace", and formerly the front entrance to the Forbidden City, this was also the site of the brutal massacre in 1989 in which state soldiers shot peaceful protesters. The Beijiinggovernment still refuses to discuss it, and censors all footage of the event.

By the spring of 1989 there was growing sentiment among university students and others in China for political and economic reform. The country had experienced a decade of remarkable economic growth andliberalization, and many Chinese had been exposed to foreign ideas and standards of living. In addition, although the economic advances in China had brought new prosperity to many citizens, it was accompanied by price inflation and opportunities for corruption by government officials. In the mid-1980s the central government had encouraged some people (notably scientists and intellectuals) to assume a more active political role, but student-leddemonstrations calling for more individual rights and freedoms in late 1986 and early 1987 caused hard-liners in the government and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to suppress what they termed “bourgeois liberalism.”

The Chinese government arrested thousands of suspected dissidents; many of them received prison sentences of varying lengths of time, and a number were executed. However, several dissident leaders managed to escape from China and sought refuge in the West.

Ai Weiwei

When Ai was arrested and interrogated by the Chinese police in 2011, his interviewers limited their questions, however, to this particular photograph, demanding an explanation. Ai stated that he had meant to target "Feudalism", explaining that the gate had been built by a Ming Emperor. While Ai's interrogators could not acknowledge it, they were no doubt aware of another layer of visual symbolism. In its resemblance to "tank man", an unidentified protestor photographed in the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident facing a line of tanks, Ai's finger, standing alone against symbols of state power at the center of this image, is a provocative stand in for a figure strictly banned in the Chinese media, and therefore truly and brilliantly provocative.

Ai Weiwei

Study of Perspective - White HousePhotograph1995-2003

Study of Perspective Tiananmen Square was part of a series begun in 1995 and completed in 2003. The Eiffel Tower in Paris, The Reichstag in Berlin and the White House in Washington D.C. all get the same treatment in these parodies of Renaissance perspective. 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.

…..Probably a rhetorical question...but can we try to answer this? What is art for ??• Jaylin: To show creativity.• Jen: To help others to feel

what you feel about something.

• Christian: To help others join a side (kozak: to CHOOSE a side)

• Mattia: To affect peoples ideas about stuff.

• Vraj: To bring awareness to topics.

• .• .• .

…..Probably a rhetorical question...but can we try to answer this? What is art for ??• Danisa: Emo KWEEN• RAWR XD• Artan: He seems angry

about how governments treat people.

• Abdul: He tries hard to understand peoples’ pain

• Sakin: People are afraid to express their pain...his art is a way to show that pain!

• .• .

Ai Weiwei

Chengdu Earthquake

Finally graded.

• RTFQ

• Use examples.

• Manage your time wisely.

Finally graded.

If your name is on it, take pride in your work…it’s an extension of who you are.

Finally graded.

There’s a direct correlation between hard work and success. Choosing the quickest method is the quickest way to ensure failure.

Straight

Rebar installation

2008-12

The largest gallery at the RA will house Straight, Ai Weiwei’s poignant response to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Poorly built schools in the Sichuan province – held up by steel rods which twisted and mangled in the quake – were devastated, leaving thousands of students dead. These rods (which Ai had laborers straighten by hand) make up the 90-ton floor-based sculpture, that is laid out in broken undulations recalling fault lines.

Ai Weiwei

Straight

Rebar installation

2008-12

Rebar is,….

Ai Weiwei

Straight

Rebar installation

2008-12

Straight is Ai Weiwei’s poignant response to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Poorly built schools in the Sichuan province – held up by steel rods which twisted and mangled in the quake – were devastated, leaving thousands of students dead. These rods (which Ai had laborers straighten by hand) make up the 90-ton floor-based sculpture, that is laid out in broken undulations recalling fault lines.

Ai Weiwei

Both a stylized representation of an earthquake and an image of its effects, Straight is a statement about a specific instance of governmental corruption and negligence. The province of Sichuan suffered massive casualties in an earthquake of 2008, leaving 90,000 dead or missing. Over 5,000 were children killed when poorly constructed schools collapsed on top of them. Ai, a self-taught architect, was outraged to discover that this could have been avoided. Both a memorial and a call to action, Straight is part of the artist's broader effort to hold the Chinese government responsible and urge it to take preventative steps to avoid future disaster. Ai Weiwei

Straight

Rebar installation

2008-12

It took him four years to complete this monumental floor sculpture --almost 40 feet long and 20 feet wide - weighing 200 tons. To construct it, he collected the bent and broken steel reinforcement bars that were part of the badly built schools. He commissioned metal workers to straighten and mend them until they looked as they would have before the earthquake. He arranged the bars in waves that resemble the oscillations in an earthquake on a seismograph. The fissures between them resemble fault lines. The thousands of individual components reference the individual lives lost, a typical feature of Ai's symbolism.

Ai Weiwei

Straight

Rebar installation

2008-12Ai Weiwei

Video of art assistants installing this work in Ontario Canada

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1ak4cj1YD0

The Chinese government did not appreciate the attention the artist drew to this national embarrassment and this marked the beginning of an especially turbulent period in Ai's adversarial relationship with Chinese authorities.

Is there an example from American history that you could use to draw attention to a national embarrassment?

Friday Dec 8 2:30-4:30pm

• Permission Slips???

• Studio Art Students may take your spot tomorrow!

Ai WeiweiSunflower Seeds

2010

In 2010 Ai filled the enormous Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern with exactly 100,000,000 porcelain sunflower seeds, each made by a craftsman from the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Hundreds of individuals had therefore been hired to produce by hand what appeared to have grown from nature. Booths on either side of the exhibition allowed viewers to appear on video and pose questions for Ai, to which he responded on the Tate website.

Sunflower Seeds

2010

While the meaning of this work remains an open question, the label "Made In China" will never look quite the same after experiencing this exhibit. It evokes complex associations, connected to Chinese history and culture. Like Ton of Tea, it is made from a substance (porcelain) made for export that has long sustained the Chinese economy. Questions about how it was made led the audience to greater understanding of contemporary mass-manufacturing practices in China. Much is still made by hand in an economy where machines are expensive and labor (and human life in general) is cheap. The artwork, therefore, was a clever pretext for calling attention to a politically sensitive issue.

Ai WeiweiSunflower Seeds

2010

The sunflower is an important Chinese communist symbol. Chairman Mao compared himself to the sun and his people to sunflowers. In Beijing, sunflower seeds are sold by urban street vendors. For Ai, a Beijing native, they evoked happy memories of wandering the city with friends. By 2010, however, due to a series of fines, arrests, and brutal beatings, he was essentially a prisoner in his own city. In this light, his seeds, cast on the ground, evoke an oppressed, downtrodden society, far from the ideal that Mao described.

Sunflower Seeds

2010

Dakota: It’s hard to tell the meaning at first….it did seem pointless at first....but now that I know the background behind it, it does have a pont.Kendell: Even before I knew tha background, I assumed it had a point. With all the time and energy there has to be some “value” to this piece. Like a reason why he made this.Jen: You only believe it’s pointless for a little bit. Once you see his motives you know the symbolism behind it. Tatiana: I agree with Kendell. If he just had ten sunflower seeds it wouldn’t make a point. But the great number of them conveys the message better. Levy: I think he’s a great artist, but this work is a mistake on his part...as much as it revitalized the town...does this seem sustainable for the town? It’s a one-time investment in this town. It tastes like corporate charity. Tenz: If he never made this piece, we would never know this town....now more people know about it.

Is it POINTLESS??

Sunflower Seeds

2010

Katelyn: This piece is not just for the sake of making it, it’s to employ all these people as well. Aidan: I agree, this is (sort of) pointless. The Rebar piece (STRAIGHT), has a whole meaning behind it Abdul: The sunflowers has symbolism in China’s history.

Marco: The leader, Mao, compared himself to the sun and his people to sunflowersPromia: This work brings attention to serious issues in China, such as wealth distribution. Danisa: 1) Agree with Promia. I’d never know about these issues without this work. (the work has a lesson to teach us)2) (kozak hijacked this point)Ingrid: If you walk in and just see this, and brush it off, you’ll never be able to appreciate it. You need to know the intention, history, context to appreciate.

Is it POINTLESS??

Seeds of a final project…

Ai Weiwei’s artwork tells the story of China’s history through a critical lens. Consider our own histories—American and all the other places

we’re from.It’s easy to show national pride, but it’s difficult to shine a light on what hasn’t been working. How will you critique the place you’re from? The

place you live?

Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo1994

Much of Ai Weiwei’s work involves unsanctioned collaboration, transformation and destruction. This piece, known as Coca-Cola Urn uses a ancient ceramic vessel from the Western Han Dynasty’s (206 BCE–9 CE) age of ceramic innovation. As the artist is an antiques connoisseur, Ai Weiwei, acquired several of these ceramic urns on returning to Beijing after 13 years in New York City. On one urn Ai painted the Coca-Cola logo, destroying, but also transforming the antique vessel.

Is this still an ancient object? Or a contemporary work of art?

Ai WeiweiHan Dynasty Urn

Photo 1995


Photo 1995

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, an early work by the artist, demonstrates his show-stopping conceptual brilliance, and desire to provoke controversy. Outside his mother's home in Beijing, he dropped and smashed a 2000-year old ceremonial urn. Not only did the artifact have considerable value (the artist paid the equivalent of several thousand US dollars for it), but symbolic and cultural worth. The Han dynasty is considered a defining moment in Chinese civilization. Understandably, antique dealers were outraged, calling Ai's work an act of desecration.


Photo 1995

Ai countered by saying "General Mao used to tell us that we can only build a new world if we destroy the old one."

Ai WeiweiColored Vases

2006-7

Colored Vases, is another vase work of Ai’s, this one owned by the Seattle Art Museum. In 2006-7, Ai dipped ancient earthenware vases into buckets of industrial paint and then let them drip dry. By covering the surfaces with new paint, what is underneath—like history itself—is “no longer visible, but is still there.”

Again….Is this still an ancient object? Or a contemporary work of art?

Ai WeiweiChina Log

2005 Tieli wood (iron wood)

Ai WeiweiChina Log

2005 Tieli wood (iron wood)

China Log is another example of Ai Weiwei remixing elements from the past. The materials from this piece came from dismantled temples of the Qing dynasty (1644-1912). The use of recycled antique wood emphasizes the rapid transformations and shifts observed within the country, as well its heritage.

What are the historical materials one could remix from the USA?

More recently, Ai Weiwei has begun to use his power and wealth in ways most artists never have. In 2016, he established a studio on the Island of Lesbos, Greece specifically with the intention of helping to provide fleeing refugees with shelter and safety. This was prompted by the 2015 death of Alan Kurdi, a three-year old whose body washed up on the shore of a Turkish beach after the boat he and his family were escaping on capsized in the Aegean sea. Alan Kurdi’s death is sadly not unique, as he is one of thousands whose lives have been lost to the Syrian Civil War. Warning.

Ai Weiwei

#KiyiyaVuranInsanlik(Turkish for “humanity washed ashore”)

Ai Weiwei

The Island of Lesbos in Greece has seen tens of thousands of refugees arriving at its shores.

Ai Weiwei• Azalea: He’s basically saying

that we are all equal, we’re all the same.

• Jen: He’s giving us the reason behind his art. The art is him expressing his suffering, even if it’s not happening directly to him.

• Tenz: He’s saying everyone in the world is connected.

• Kendell: Agreed. I think he’s trying to raise the conflict of people not being aware of global hardships.

Ai Weiwei• Abdul: He’s not just worried

himself. He’s concerned about the welfare of other people.

• Katelyn: He seems like a selfless person. Trying to help as much as he can.

• Sarah: He’s responsible for ALL the people.

• Promia: “if you kill someone you are committing the act of killing all of humanity.” –in the Qu’ran

• Michael: we all suffer from an individual suffering, what if it happens to us?

• .

Ai Weiwei

Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

2017

Currently Ai Weiwei has multiple public art installations up in NYC as part of a project called Good Fences Make Good Neighbors. This is yet another work of his that draws attention to the immigration crisis in America and the world at large.

There are different types of installations, some

Sculptural installations…


2017

5th Ave and 59th st. Flushing Meadows Corona ParkQueens

Street Post Banners


2017

Amsterdam and 68th Flushing Meadows Corona ParkQueens

Bus Shelters Good Fences Make Good Neighbors

2017

163rd and Third Ave,Bronx

121st and Adam Clayton PowellHarlem

Ai WeiweiHuman FLOW

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/9/human_flow_world_renowned_artist_activist

Or

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVZGyTdk_BY

https://www.democracynow.org/2017/10/9/human_flow_world_renowned_artist_activist

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVZGyTdk_BY

Final Thoughts on Ai Weiwei?Yeva: I like that he’s trying to raise awareness

about the refugee crisis and Chinese history. But it

doesn’t make me feel anything.

Delani: Looking at it, I don’t feel anything. It

seems irrelevant and pointless but after learning

about the meaning and intention, it adds new

definition to it and I appreciate it more.

Jaylin: You don’t really understand his work

when you first see it, until you dig deep and find

the message of it.

Jaylieen: He’s very interesting. He’s different

from any other artist we’ve talked about. He’s

persistent with his ideas.

Levy: He’s a genius, but the sunflower seed piece

is kinda weak.

Azalea: His work isn’t DIRECT. You need to

learn things to understand this artwork.

Final Thoughts on Ai Weiwei?

Danisa: This is my favorite artist I think.

Everything he does has meaning. Everything

big or small has meaning. There’s a story

behind anything.

Michael: He’s not afraid to challenge others or

governments. His work is really admirable,

he’s not afraid to take risks.

Mariama: He puts a lot of effort into his work.

You can tell he has a message and wants to

show it though his work.

Katelyn: The message wouldn’t be clear

unless you have the background knowledge.

(CONTEXT)

Prince: I LOVE THE MAN!

Artan: There’s no pointless art, people

wouldn’t make art if they didn’t have a

point to make.

Resources

Art21:https://art21.org/artist/ai-

weiwei/?gclid=CjwKCAjw2s_MBRA5EiwAmWIacxYkZK1ivgCBEi8WW7b7cFE5kGNGTI6IiaPLhjREfic6AG6OBmz4mxoCWH8QAvD_BwE

Public Art Fund:https://www.publicartfund.org/view/exhibitions/6185_ai_weiwei_good_fences_make_good_neighbors

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Download - Guggenheim - Ai Weiwei

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