Ai Weiwei's parents were protesters, themselves. His father was a poet who earned himself and his wife more than a few years in a labor camp. Ai spent a few years there, as well. He became an artist which did not graduate from the 'acceptable' academy in China and so his art is known as outsider art. It's all inflammatory, all real, and always relevant. The Chinese government passionately hates him and his international stardom. Trying to rein him in only makes his retaliatory acts more daring.
In 2008 he designed "The Birdsnest" stadium structure for the Olympics. It all went downhill from there because he was finally woken up to what kind of protest was necessary to promote change in China. It's been a battle staying alive since then.
This picture below shows the installation art ("Remembering") he created entirely from 9,000 children's backpacks in the wake of the devastating 2008 earthquuake which killed so many thousands. The pictures Ai saw after the incident of backpacks strewn everywhere around these schools haunted him.
"She
lived happily for seven years in this world," which was a quote from
the parent of one of the victim's mother. This is what the Chinese
characters spell out in the installation art.
As another form of protest he and his company compiled a list of every child they could find out about. By April of 2009 they had compiled a list totaling 5,385 verifiable names. After he posted their names online the government ripped his blog down. So he had other people post the names to get the word out!!
Ai is an avid Twitter fanatic. His blog got ripped down a few times by the government so he gave up. I went to the site and sure enough, it's just a blanket page with a link about the government suing him and a few links. But on Twitter he is a chatterbox.
Here he is eating outside a cafe with a dozen anonymous friends who sat down to eat with him. That act alone was defiance on their part. The police showed up and tried to harass him to leave. He didn't. Everyone finished their meals. The police could only watch and glare at them.
The Chinese government finally got tired of his antics and....
Ai was detained at Beijing airport by police when he was trying to board a plane to Hong Kong. Protests and rallies have helped spread the word of what Chinese officials have done.
They held Ai Weiwei for eighty-one days in an undisclosed location and interrogated him about his 'unlawful activities' within his art. They were interested in his publicity interviews and online activities. They detained him under the guise of investigating his company's finances. He was released after admitting to 'tax evasion(which he later lost in court but is refusing to pay out) and put on probation which prohibited him from speaking to reporters, blogging or tweeting, or leaving the city of Beijing.
The sign above is one which was at a protest rally in China at a police station. Sorry about the movie control area graying out a portion of it. It says, "China Set Them Free!" That is a list of the number of writers, lawyers, artists, teachers, and other intellectuals who were all systematically rounded up around the same time as Ai.
The artist reappeared over two months later, shaken, and wouldn't talk to anyone for quite some time. He said that he was out on bail and couldn't access his Twitter account or talk about anything that happened. It didn't stop him for long, though. Within weeks he was back at it.
In 2011 the government demolished his art studio which had just been completed. Ai invited people to an outdoor barbecue to celebrate but he couldn't attend the party himself because he was placed on house arrest. Celebrate what, you ask? Friendship!!! Camaraderie! Harmony! The joy of being alive. Later that day the building they celebrated in was demolished by government workers. The party was the only act of defiance they could really make.
One of his most notable recent works was a short film featuring Ai writing in Chinese characters on a white background and then several people coming to stand before they camera and saying, "Fuck you, motherland," in their native tongue and then walking away from the camera's view. Ai was last. The international art community, along with Human Rights Watch, collectively felt their jaws hit the floor. This was one of his most provocative works. No one could be sure what would happen to him now.
In April of 2012, Ai set up several cameras to monitor him at his house and linked the feed online. His reason was that the Chinese government already had a dozen cameras on him already, 24/7, so what's four more? Forty-six hours after his cameras went live the government demanded he removed them. They received over five million views before being disconnected.
I'd like everyone reading this to pause for a moment to consider the implications here. The government can watch your every move and it's ok. But if you hook up a live feed to the internet and allow the rest of the world to watch you-- it's NOT ok?
I know at this point it's not just an act of defiance on his part, it's for his own personal safety. Still, it is an artist's statement which deserves to be analyzed on a global scale. What would happen if you tried to do the same thing??
And so now we watch and wait to see what happens to this brave man.
Here is a link to his Twitter account. It's in Chinese. Does anyone know how I can translate that whole page to English??
5 comments:
At the time I am commenting, I haven't read this post yet. But, by scrolling through, it doesn't look like this applies to this post. I didn't want to hide it in a previous post in case you don't check those very often. I also follow a Tai Chi blog. Periodically he will post excerpts from the Tao De Ching. This was his post from yesterday. I immediately thought of you and Gnosis when I read this. It appears there are others that believe the same way.
"There was something undefined and complete, coming into existence before Heaven and Earth.
How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change, reaching everywhere and in no danger of being exhausted!
It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.
I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Tao.
Making an effort to give it a name, I call it The Great.
Great, it passes on in constant flow.
Passing on, it becomes remote.
Having become remote, it returns.
Therefore the Tao is great, Heaven is great, Earth is great, and the sage king is also great.
In the universe there are four that are great, and the sage king is one of them.
Man takes his law from the Earth.
Earth takes its law from Heaven.
Heaven takes its law from the Tao.
The law of the Tao is its being what it is."
The Chinese gov't never ceases to surprise us. It amazes me the people in this country that totally trust this gov't. As far as translation go, I was emailing, skyping with a Chinese lady for about five months. She knew English pretty well, but when I needed to translate, she said reverso.net was pretty accurate. Just pick the translate button at the top of their page. Scan down the page and you'll see a group of international flags. Chinese is on the bottom line right side. I will check out Ai's twitter feed. I love the Asian culture, it makes me sad that they're so suppressed
Ahh, grasshopper, now you see it!!
Yes, gnosis, and the concept of The All or the Constant or Power or Totality is universal and timeless. We find remnants of gnosticism all over the world and in all time periods. Curious, ehh????
Things like this firmly remind me that the All within us all is like a universal web. We can learn from anyone, past, present, and future. I believe this is how civilizations so removed from one another can have such similar gnostic roots in their religion or world view philosophy. What I find most intriguing in studying this is not just the identification with 'vastness' of God or Tao or whatever-- but the strikingly familiar descriptions!! This is how gnostics describe the Good God. Timeless, unfathomable, immutable, etc. etc. It's not simple reverence for a deity. It is an explicit understanding of the vastness of his permeation in our very being and the universe itself. They are not describing a dogmatic kind of revelation, they're describing the total freedom of Pleroma.
Here's another post I did on Tao: http://gnostic-unrest.blogspot.com/search/label/Orson%20Scott%20Card
Blogger's a bastard again today. My post is too long. Here it is continued:
You may find it worth investigating. This author swears he's Mormon and yet... his writing doesn't reflect that. I've learned a great deal about gnosis from him and the concept of the aiua as well as philotic twining. Philotes are exciting things not just in a philosophical sense but in a scientific sense, as well. Studying the newest quantum physics theories backs up the theory of philotes and their(our) connection to everyone and everything in the universe all at once.
About this particular blog post(and I don't really mind where you post comments, I get them all and will answer them wherever you put them):
Yes, we can learn a GREAT deal about what Chinese activists are doing and NEED to apply those same tactics here in the States. People are willfully oblivious to most things going on right now BUT! The good news is that I've seen evidence that a lot of people are waking up!! :) There was a CNBC segment a few days ago in which callers were pointing out the obvious lies in the Marathon Bombing incident and calling it what it is-- a false flag to give 'them' the excuse to shred our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. We are not more protected by only cops having weapons. That leaves the bad guys + cops having weapons. How are civilians supposed to protect themselves? Pepper spray and baseball bats??! Gimme a break. Our Constitution is not broken but there are some people who are doing everything they can to shred it and make us happily deluded that they're doing it. False flag glamour is dying. The public is more aware. People are taping things and taking pictures of things and uploading them to YouTube before the cops can tear it down or retrieve it out of their computers.
Part 3!
My one caution about this is the following-- don't just upload it. Dont' just keep it on your computer or on a memory card/flash drive. BURN IT ONTO DISK!! SEVERAL! Give them to friends, family, hiding places even, and then don't tell the cops. Fine, let them take your computer and your camera. You've still got copies of the evil deeds saved and untouchable. Websites can be torn down and blocked and altered. But if you have physical proof then you're good to go. Best insurance policy ever.
We're waking up. It gives me much hope. This is why Ai's story is so important.
In the UK's "Guardian" there is an entire tab section devoted to this guy! Here's the link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/ai-weiwei
I'll be posting this link in a column very soon. Trying to figure out where it should go. Maybe I need a new section devoted to individual activists.
Ai's the shit, man. He gets in trouble in China for doing things that artists everywhere are doing or have done. It's not even avant garde. It's art. It's life. It's expression. But the Chinese hate that.
That's one tall nail they're going to have to hammer on. He's a trademark now. You can't kill an idea like Ai Weiwei even if you kill the man himself.
Thank you so much for the info about reverso.net. I'll check them out!! I really want to be able to read his Tweets.
Post a Comment