Ai Weiwei seems to be everywhere these days, which is ironic considering he remains country-bound, prohibited from travelling outside of his native China for dissident activities. Hasn’t seemed to have stopped him, with the help of social media and an exponential growth of western fans, it will be fascinating to watch how far he can push the Chinese government on issues of democracy and human rights. While he is stuck his art is travelling – all over the place in fact, creating offshoots as it goes – like the recent video game inspired by the expensive urn dropping incident in Miami earlier this year. In the UK he is currently exhibiting at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, so Plant Curator thought it would be timely to look at a few of his more plant-centric activities.
Iron Tree, 2013
Currently set in the Chapel courtyard at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, this 6m high erection is made up of 99 assembled iron parts – cast from real branches, roots and trunks collected by people across China – bolted or welded together. Up close, seeing the joins, there is something Frankensteinesque about it – solid but sad. At a distance, with the backdrop of living evergreen relatives, it is more godly. The inspiration for the piece apparently came from street vendors of Jingdezhen who sell wood for its beauty. Knowing this, and understanding the collective effort of its coming together, adds additional power to the piece. On till November 2nd.
With Flowers – ongoing
Ai’s studio is located in the village of Caochangdi, on the outskirts of Beijing. The entrance to which is rather appealing – big blue gates, brick stone wall, grey, dusty road with leaning tree. One can only imagine the creativity that goes on behind it, yet at the same time it reinforces his prison-like status. So it is fitting that against the tree he has placed a bicycle, and in the basket he places a fresh bouquet of flowers every day he is held captive in his country. He then takes a photograph for his website. It’s peaceful, poetic protest using the power of plants.
Sunflower Seeds – Tate Modern, 2010
This beautiful and intriguing installation was made up of millions of small, unique hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seeds, individually sculpted and painted by skilled workers from the Chinese porcelain producing city of Jingdezhen. They were then sown across the Turbine Hall. This stirringly silencing space is quite something on its own, but covered with the artist’s creation, and alluding to issues of globalisation and mass production in China, it impacted even more. The choice of sunflowers is explained on aiweiweiseed.com as follows: “The layers of seeds, though simple in form, embody multiple meanings. The sunflower seed is a common street snack in China, an everyday object from the artist’s childhood. It evokes the memory of hardships and hunger during the Cultural Revolution, and the era of socialist planned economy with the collective worship of the ”sun” – Chairman Mao.”.
Artist’s website: www.aiweiwei.com
Follow: @aiww