Xie Caomin @ VOLTA NY 2010
The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei
12 October 2010 – 25 April 2011
The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei will undertake the eleventh commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern.
This annual commission invites an artist to make a work of art especially for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The Series has resulted in some of the most innovative and significant sculptures of recent years. Admission to The Unilever Series is free. more...
Tate Modern Turbine Hall to host China's Warhol
Ai Weiwei, China's most famous living artist, becomes the 11th person to receive the UK's most popular public art commission
Amelia Hill, social affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 March 2010 12.10 GMT
source: guardian.co.uk
The cavernous space of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall has been dwarfed by a massive spider, cleaved by a 167-metre crack and baked by an artificial sun. Now, the gallery has announced, the space is to be filled by its most politically adventurous commission yet.
Ai Weiwei is China's most famous living artist. Described by the New York Times as a "figure of Warholian celebrity" in Beijing, Ai is also an influential architect, a publisher, a restaurateur, a patron and mentor and an obsessive blogger (he is read by 10,000 people every day).
His cultural status, however, failed to protect him last year when Chinese po:ice burst into his hotel room and beat him so badly that surgeons in Munich later had to drill two holes in his head to remove 30ml of fluid from his skull.
The attack was a reaction to Ai's investigation into the deaths of 5,250 children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, an inquiry that inspired Remembering 2009, a work made up of thousands of children's backpacks.
His outspoken challenge to the government over why so many children died was, however, just the latest in a series of provocative stances the artist has taken. He inspired Beijing's Olympic stadium but then refused to attend the opening ceremony. His criticism of the government is fearless.
He acknowledges his activism could well see him attacked again and even jailed. But these are fates viewed with equanimity by an artist who spent five of his formative years in a desert labour camp with his father, the Chinese poet Ai Qing.
"I almost got killed," he admitted after his Munich operation. "If it had been any more serious, I wouldn't be here. The point is if you want to make a point you are in danger. Whoever comes to this point will be crushed."
Ai is the 11th commission in the Tate's Unilever Series, the most popular of public art installations in recent years.
Vicente Todolí, director of Tate Modern, said Ai's works were "compelling" and "among the most socially engaged works of art being made today".
"It will be thrilling to see how he responds to the vast, public environment of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern this October," he added.
Ai's work, which only started selling in 2004 when Switzerland hosted his first exhibition, is characterised by the use of "readymade" Chinese antiquities to satirise the modern obsession with possessions.
In 1995 he photographed himself shattering a Han dynasty urn (Dropping A Han Dynasty Urn). In 2006 he covered 39 neolithic vases with brightly coloured paint (Coloured Vases). For Template 2007 he generated an artificial storm that transformed a neat sculpture comprising 1001 wooden doors and windows taken from destroyed Chinese buildings into a twisted, crumpled mess.
"Everything is art. Everything is politics. You can call it art or non-art, I don't give a damn," Ai has said.
As is always the case, the details of the newest Tate commission will remain a mystery until it is unveiled on 12 October 2010. The exhibition will run until 25 April 2011.
Ai Weiwei, China's most famous living artist, becomes the 11th person to receive the UK's most popular public art commission
Amelia Hill, social affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Friday 5 March 2010 12.10 GMT
source: guardian.co.uk
The cavernous space of Tate Modern's Turbine Hall has been dwarfed by a massive spider, cleaved by a 167-metre crack and baked by an artificial sun. Now, the gallery has announced, the space is to be filled by its most politically adventurous commission yet.
Ai Weiwei is China's most famous living artist. Described by the New York Times as a "figure of Warholian celebrity" in Beijing, Ai is also an influential architect, a publisher, a restaurateur, a patron and mentor and an obsessive blogger (he is read by 10,000 people every day).
His cultural status, however, failed to protect him last year when Chinese po:ice burst into his hotel room and beat him so badly that surgeons in Munich later had to drill two holes in his head to remove 30ml of fluid from his skull.
The attack was a reaction to Ai's investigation into the deaths of 5,250 children in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, an inquiry that inspired Remembering 2009, a work made up of thousands of children's backpacks.
His outspoken challenge to the government over why so many children died was, however, just the latest in a series of provocative stances the artist has taken. He inspired Beijing's Olympic stadium but then refused to attend the opening ceremony. His criticism of the government is fearless.
He acknowledges his activism could well see him attacked again and even jailed. But these are fates viewed with equanimity by an artist who spent five of his formative years in a desert labour camp with his father, the Chinese poet Ai Qing.
"I almost got killed," he admitted after his Munich operation. "If it had been any more serious, I wouldn't be here. The point is if you want to make a point you are in danger. Whoever comes to this point will be crushed."
Ai is the 11th commission in the Tate's Unilever Series, the most popular of public art installations in recent years.
Vicente Todolí, director of Tate Modern, said Ai's works were "compelling" and "among the most socially engaged works of art being made today".
"It will be thrilling to see how he responds to the vast, public environment of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern this October," he added.
Ai's work, which only started selling in 2004 when Switzerland hosted his first exhibition, is characterised by the use of "readymade" Chinese antiquities to satirise the modern obsession with possessions.
In 1995 he photographed himself shattering a Han dynasty urn (Dropping A Han Dynasty Urn). In 2006 he covered 39 neolithic vases with brightly coloured paint (Coloured Vases). For Template 2007 he generated an artificial storm that transformed a neat sculpture comprising 1001 wooden doors and windows taken from destroyed Chinese buildings into a twisted, crumpled mess.
"Everything is art. Everything is politics. You can call it art or non-art, I don't give a damn," Ai has said.
As is always the case, the details of the newest Tate commission will remain a mystery until it is unveiled on 12 October 2010. The exhibition will run until 25 April 2011.
Ai Weiwei: 'I have to speak for people who are afraid'
This autumn, Ai Weiwei, China's most outspoken artist, will take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. He talks about how his art and politics are indistinguishable
source: the Guardian website
Author: Tania Branigan
When you first meet him, Ai Weiwei seems as solid and impassive as a pillar of granite. He leads the way into his home without a word, then sits silently at the head of a long wooden table. But on the wall of his elegant, open-plan home, in the outskirts of Beijing, hangs a single image: of a hand with its middle finger raised. Ai has plenty to say.
Indeed he has so much to say that the 53-year-old is not only China's most famous living artist, but also a constant irritant to its authorities. When Tate Modern announced recently that it had commissioned him to fill its Turbine Hall later this year, it was a welcome reminder of his work, which in recent times has become almost overshadowed by his social and political criticism. Ai is now perhaps best known for his angry and sustained denunciations of officialdom through interviews, documentaries and above all the internet....more
This autumn, Ai Weiwei, China's most outspoken artist, will take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. He talks about how his art and politics are indistinguishable
source: the Guardian website
Author: Tania Branigan
When you first meet him, Ai Weiwei seems as solid and impassive as a pillar of granite. He leads the way into his home without a word, then sits silently at the head of a long wooden table. But on the wall of his elegant, open-plan home, in the outskirts of Beijing, hangs a single image: of a hand with its middle finger raised. Ai has plenty to say.
Indeed he has so much to say that the 53-year-old is not only China's most famous living artist, but also a constant irritant to its authorities. When Tate Modern announced recently that it had commissioned him to fill its Turbine Hall later this year, it was a welcome reminder of his work, which in recent times has become almost overshadowed by his social and political criticism. Ai is now perhaps best known for his angry and sustained denunciations of officialdom through interviews, documentaries and above all the internet....more
