Ai Weiwei

watched "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" on the netflixes last night and saw retrospective exhibition at the Hirshhorn last year. Wish I could go back in time and to London to see "Sunflower Seeds" in the Turbine Hall. Did any London ilxors get to see that while it was installed?

Dude has like 90,000 tweets btw

I saw his show at the Hirshhorn in DC over the winter. Lots of good stuff. I especially liked Cube Light, and the zodiac animal heads. Keep meaning to watch the documentary, but haven't yet.

Oh, loved the backpack snake, too.

you can still go see the exhibition of seeds stolen from that exhibition

Top agent provocateur, brave fucker and I admire what he does. But he isn't no goddamned artist. Not in my fucked up old head anyway!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ACj86DKfWs

the doc's ok but it has a pandering social media framing device thats all like letters being tweeted across the screen saying 'participate... you can make a difference... young people are the future...' and is really annoying

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H3BNju20ec8/UXlAnhhW1VI/AAAAAAAADFY/umPKCwIPIpc/s1600/aiww_4S_Poster700.jpg

Saw this this other week. Looked like that video. Was a pretty good reenactment of the bizarre and harrowing nature of his detention, had quite a powerful closing monologue. Benedict Wong was great.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22627605

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei has released an expletive-ridden heavy metal music video criticising abuses of state power in China.

Interesting, i was just about to start an ai weiwei thread myself.
this looks amazing.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/27/arts/design/ai-weiwei-dioramas-depict-his-imprisonment.html

good quick intro if you're unfamiliar with him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZJwXIz31b8

i found the ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE rhetoric of never sorry less an issue than the way they unearthed his complex and problematic personal life and then shrugged it off

I respect this dude but I find his work really bland and dull.

i found the ONE PERSON CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE rhetoric of never sorry less an issue than the way they unearthed his complex and problematic personal life and then shrugged it off

― klaus dingeldore's rhinelander monkey keeper father (forksclovetofu), Monday, May 27, 2013 12:19 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

that was my other issue, it could've been more probing and less worshipful

He's not my favourite contemporary Chinese artist (i like Zhang Huan a lot more) but you can probably count the number of political conceptual artists who impinge upon the mainstream consciousness on the fingers of one hand at the moment. His work is important, accessible and often very good.

I thought the documentary was fine. Perhaps a touch worshipful, as art documentaries tend to be, but i can't really see what would have been gained from pressing him further on his marital arrangements.

His work can be all over the map, from the fairly straight-forward zodiac animal head sculptures to bad conceptual art to photos of Ginsburg and others in NYC. I haven't seen the doc, just the exhibit that was at the Hirshhorn in DC

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/18/arts/design/ai-weiwei-vase-destroyed-by-protester-at-miami-museum.html
can't really argue with dude on this one; would love it if ai (who's working on a showing of work at alcatraz) found a way to get this guy out of jail

Human Flow, his personal documentary on the refugee crisis, is up for free on Amazon Prime. It's timely, compassionate, and upsetting. His New York city installation just ended. He's working on Puerto Rico now...