Artist OTW-Ai Weiwei
About the Artist
Ai Weiwei was born on August 28, 1957. He is a famous Chinese artist and activist. He was the artist consultant for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Olympic games. Over the years he has been critical and produced art criticizing the Chinese government's communist ways and corruption. He lived in the United States from 1981 to 1993 where he studies and multiple schools. He eventually dropped out and began to create conceptual art. He creates art using mixed media such as music, documentaries, architecture, and visual arts.
Formal Analysis
Ai Weiwei uses a variety of different media to create his art. He has made a number of documentaries, music, and visual art pieces. His art focuses on his opposition against the corruption of the Chinese government. One of the most moving art pieces that Ai has created was called Sunflower Seeds. He filled the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Modern art gallery with 100,000,000 porcelain sunflower seeds. He hired craftsmen to make each one of these seeds. Ai Weiwei takes his time and puts thorough thought into each one of his pieces and the materials he uses. In this particular piece I find it interesting that he uses porcelain as the material for the sunflower seeds because porcelain has been a major Chinese export.
Content Analysis
Like much of his work, Sunflower Seeds is a criticism of the Chinese government. I found Sunflower Seeds particular powerful because of the multiple ties and representations of corruption it showed. In propaganda used by Mao Zedong, he depicted himself as the sun and the people of China as the sunflower seeds on sunflowers. Also, the collection and vastness of the sunflower seeds represent the Chinese people and the fact that they are identical closely together represents the conformity under communist rule of Zedong.
My Experience
I was deeply moved by Sunflower Seeds in particular because of the patience and craftsmanship involved in creating such a vast piece of visual art to make such a powerful statement against the government of his home country. I also admire Ai's passion and fearlessness in delivering his messages through his art. I took the time to listen to some of his music in addition to his visual art pieces. Besides the powerful lyrics that clearly deliver his frustration of the corruption happening in his country, the actual instrumentation and sound of the music itself support and deliver a powerful feeling of frustration.
