A window to the world of Ai Weiwei

Abstract

Ai Weiwei at the UK's Royal Academy covers the past 22 years of the artist's work. I have seen few contemporary art exhibitions that have such a powerful effect as this one. Ai Weiwei's main themes are freedom, power, politics, the abuse of human rights, and connecting all of these: Chinese culture. Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 and spent his childhood with his exiled parents in the north of China, and subsequently in Xinjiang province. His father, Ai Qing, was considered China's most eminent poet, but, forbidden to write, he was sentenced to hard labour by the Chinese Communist Party. Describing his childhood, Ai Weiwei has said that “living conditions were extremely harsh, and education was almost non-existent”. Despite the hardships, he followed a creative path studying at the Beijing Film Academy and becoming part of an avant-garde art collective. But the political censure the collective faced led Ai Weiwei to move to New York in 1983, returning home a decade later and becoming one of China's leading contemporary artists. But his life in China has been marked by time in and out of detention. Ai Weiwei is familiar to many through his prolific use of social media, which he has used to record the abuse and imprisonment he has suffered in the name of freedom of expression. He's also shared information about events in China, notably the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, until his Weibo site was shut down by the Chinese Government in 2009. Through blogging, Instagram, and Twitter Ai Weiwei has found a lifeline through the online community— “If my art is my life, without the Internet there is no life”, he has said. A recurring theme of Ai Weiwei's work is his use of found materials, always chosen for a historical or political reason. The marble used to model Surveillance Camera (2010) is the same type and from the same quarry as the mausoleum built for Chairman Mao, and so is heavily loaded. Surveillance Camera is a replica of the equipment that has followed Ai Weiwei since his arrest in 2009, and it turns the power balance around. S.A.C.R.E.D is a series of six cubic room reconstructions, built to half scale, with each room recreating an aspect of Ai Weiwei's captivity, filling the final large room of the Royal Academy. In 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested while travelling from Taipei to Hong Kong and was kept prisoner for 81 days, with two silent guards around the clock. The rooms reconstruct the mundane activities of captivity: Supper (eating), Accusers (interrogation), Cleansing (bathing), Ritual (pacing/walking), Entropy (sleep), and Doubt (using the toilet). Visitors have to wait in line for a turn to look at life in prison, and can see into the sparse, brightly lit rooms through small viewing panels. The scenes are chillingly memorable: a sink covered in masking tape, plastic crockery as might be used by children, and an undignified lack of privacy. During imprisonment, Ai Weiwei was visited for medical check-ups, sometimes as frequently as six times a day, as part of his torture, and the role of doctors as complicit in his maltreatment is deeply disturbing. To me, the impact of this exhibition lies in the power of visual art as a cultural record. Cultures don't last forever, and works of art often have more longevity than any other record, and act as a window into culture. Contemporary art is often met with scepticism, and is not seen as having the potential to last beyond the moment. But Ai Weiwei's work is surely not transient, and although the Chinese Government's attitude to Ai Weiwei and human rights has shown signs of improvement with his release for travel this summer, Ai Weiwei's art and voice document a disturbing era of cultural history. Ai Weiwei Royal Academy of Art, London, UK, until Dec 13, 2015 https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiweiInstagram and Twitter @aiww Ai Weiwei Royal Academy of Art, London, UK, until Dec 13, 2015 https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiwei Instagram and Twitter @aiww