Catalogue
Alison Hissey on the famous Chinese
dissident artist’s
political artworks
The Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is the Chinese artist’s first major show in the UK.
It includes iconic works as well as pieces created especially for the RA’s galleries. The work is dazzling in its range, from beautifully-crafted miniature porcelain ornaments to the 90-tonne metal wave-forms of steel reinforcing bars that make up Straight, Ai’s tribute to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake victims.
Ai’s works truly come to life through the stories that surround each piece, which give even the most darkly humorous works a sense of gravity, transforming them into powerful social and political commentary.
The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition aims to uncover these stories, to give western audiences an insight into the sheer audacity that is required to make politically outspoken art under relentless government surveillance.
Ai, as the son of a poet who was exiled with his family to China’s remote northwest during government oppression of free-thinking intellectuals, knows all too well that freedom of speech is a constant struggle in China.
Curator Adrian Locke’s account of Ai’s life tells how he has fought this battle: beaten, imprisoned and fined. His passport was seized in 2011 during his 81-day detention by the Chinese authorities in a secret prison.
The interview with the RA’s artistic director, Tim Marlow, conducted in Ai’s studio-house in Beijing, is a poignant reflection on the sacrifices involved in being what Anish Kapoor describes as a “citizen artist”.
The catalogue presents Ai’s work not just in terms of its political context, but also in respect to its important position in Chinese art history – something with which, as John Tancock explains, Ai himself is acutely engaged.
As well as being a key figure in contemporary Chinese art, Ai is linked with ancient Chinese artistic identity through his use of traditional craftsmanship and materials – the exceptional skill of his craftsmen is highlighted in the book’s photographic details.
In his architectural practice, too, explored here by Daniel Rosbottom, Ai is as significant a creator as he is an agitator. Beautiful illustrations show the thoughtful construction of the Beijing suburb of Caochangdi, in contrast to the destruction of traditional Chinese urban fabric by developers.
As an institution that promotes the making and debating of art, as well as its display, we wanted to extend this creativity from the show into its accompanying publication.
Ai enthusiastically agreed, choosing to turn a limited edition of the catalogue into a work of art with the same dripping industrial paint that he had used to transform his iconic neolithic and Han Dynasty Painted Vases (left).
The final handmade book jackets are testament to a complex collaboration between the artist and the RA that took place over nearly 7,000 miles, and a bold gesture of artistic defiance in the face of political oppression.
Alison Hissey is a project editor for Royal Academy Publications. Ai Weiwei is on show at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 13 December
It includes iconic works as well as pieces created especially for the RA’s galleries. The work is dazzling in its range, from beautifully-crafted miniature porcelain ornaments to the 90-tonne metal wave-forms of steel reinforcing bars that make up Straight, Ai’s tribute to the 2008 Sichuan earthquake victims.
Ai’s works truly come to life through the stories that surround each piece, which give even the most darkly humorous works a sense of gravity, transforming them into powerful social and political commentary.
The catalogue that accompanies the exhibition aims to uncover these stories, to give western audiences an insight into the sheer audacity that is required to make politically outspoken art under relentless government surveillance.
Ai, as the son of a poet who was exiled with his family to China’s remote northwest during government oppression of free-thinking intellectuals, knows all too well that freedom of speech is a constant struggle in China.
Curator Adrian Locke’s account of Ai’s life tells how he has fought this battle: beaten, imprisoned and fined. His passport was seized in 2011 during his 81-day detention by the Chinese authorities in a secret prison.
The interview with the RA’s artistic director, Tim Marlow, conducted in Ai’s studio-house in Beijing, is a poignant reflection on the sacrifices involved in being what Anish Kapoor describes as a “citizen artist”.
The catalogue presents Ai’s work not just in terms of its political context, but also in respect to its important position in Chinese art history – something with which, as John Tancock explains, Ai himself is acutely engaged.
As well as being a key figure in contemporary Chinese art, Ai is linked with ancient Chinese artistic identity through his use of traditional craftsmanship and materials – the exceptional skill of his craftsmen is highlighted in the book’s photographic details.
In his architectural practice, too, explored here by Daniel Rosbottom, Ai is as significant a creator as he is an agitator. Beautiful illustrations show the thoughtful construction of the Beijing suburb of Caochangdi, in contrast to the destruction of traditional Chinese urban fabric by developers.
As an institution that promotes the making and debating of art, as well as its display, we wanted to extend this creativity from the show into its accompanying publication.
Ai enthusiastically agreed, choosing to turn a limited edition of the catalogue into a work of art with the same dripping industrial paint that he had used to transform his iconic neolithic and Han Dynasty Painted Vases (left).
The final handmade book jackets are testament to a complex collaboration between the artist and the RA that took place over nearly 7,000 miles, and a bold gesture of artistic defiance in the face of political oppression.
Alison Hissey is a project editor for Royal Academy Publications. Ai Weiwei is on show at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, until 13 December