I met Ai Weiwei in 2008 at the opening of his exhibition at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Sydney’s Paddington; he had filled the gallery space with a powerful sculptural installation made from massive beams and pillars from Qing Dynasty temples manifestly juxtaposed with humble wooden tables. Now China’s most famous contemporary artist has ‘disappeared’ arrested at Beijing airport, and his words go round my mind with poignant force: “Without freedom of speech there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.”
Returning home at the end of the week, after working in Sydney, the last leg of the three hour trip, is taken by foot, at midnight. Alighting the train at the deserted station, I walk up the main road’s desolate incline, backpack over my shoulder, pulling the wheeled overnight bag like a reluctant pet dog behind me. Ignore a taxi that swerves to the kerb before me... Reaching the small parade of shops at the crest of the hill a deafening noise shatters the quiet night. Passing the pizza place and corner pub, the din is astonishing. Crossing the empty road I look up in wonder. On either side of the intersection of my street, the trees are screeching; leaves rustling and shaking with birds enjoying a raucous night. Of course, it's Friday night, in my suburb, even the birds party... Inside the cottage, I can still hear the wild bird cries. 'Release Ai Weiwei'... I want to write but the urge saddens me because I keep thinking about Ai Weiwei, whom the world press report has ‘disappeared’; where has he gone?
When I met Ai Weiwei, it was at the opening of his 2008 exhibition at Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation in Sydney’s Paddington. For his installation “Ai Weiwei: Under Construction” he had filled the gallery space with two works. Through, 2007-8, a powerful sculptural installation made of iron wood timbers from ancient temples of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) that the artist had conjoined with domestic wooden tables, in a style that made me think of Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass. The work juxtaposed the scale and symbolism of monumental temple structures and everyday furniture; deconstructed and reconstructed in awkward intersections and dis-junctures, that paradoxically evoked social relations in architectural and human space; past and present, in material form. Ai Weiwei's second work, Fairytale- Film 2008, was a video installation made for Documeta XII. For this he flew 1001 Chinese citizens who had never before left China to Kassel, to wander the streets in an open cultural exchange. Dr Gene Sherman, Chairman, Executive Director of SCAF, has written on her foundation's website of this work: ‘Ai Weiwei’s artistic output, based on the formulation of ideas, is interwoven with his political thinking and illuminates for the audience the internal struggles China currently faces, as well as deep human concerns.’ A prominent transnational artist, architect, designer, and blogger, Ai Weiwei is also affectionately known as a Warholian prankster who sported zany haircuts. But it seems it was not his haircuts but his belief in freedom of speech that brought him into trouble.
The disturbing news I have read on the internet circles my mind in fragments. For three years Ai Weiwei kept a blog every day sharing what was on his mind...He wrote of his experiences as a leading figure in the international art scene, living in the eighties in New York where he was influenced by Dada and Warhol, returning to reside in his homeland in the early 90s... Widely exhibited around the world, he has a huge international following and is spoken of as an inspiration to a generation of young Chinese artists... After the Sichuan earthquakes in 2009, he posted lists on his blog of all the children killed, and wrote of ‘tofu dregs’ school buildings...He said that when he went to the trial of an earthquake disaster activist police visited his hotel room at 3 am, he suffered a blow... one month later, in Munich for an exhibition, his cerebral haemmoraging required life-saving surgery ... On June 1 2009, his entire blog with millions of comments was taken down by... In November 2010 his ‘million dollar art-studio’ in Shanghai was demolished... In early April 2011 he was arrested at Beijing International Airport and detained; for weeks apparently even his family did not know of his whereabouts... The latest media reports say he is awaiting trial on ‘fraud charges’...
Leading world art museums such as London’s Tate, and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) and the Guggenheim Foundation in New York, have joined prominent figures in the international art world and supporters around the globe who are publicly calling for his release... Huge black letters on the side of London’s Tate Modern (where the artist’s Sunflowers installation has been on display since last October) spell the words ‘Release Ai Weiwei’...
As the nocturnal birds screech raucously, my thoughts go out to him and the free artist spirit, in the night.
It is a tragic paradox that in global human society there may be forces that wish to stifle free spirits, and silence the most exuberant voices. Ai Weiwei wrote of such things in his blog which has just been published by MIT in edited form as a book. Ai Weiwei’s Blog: Writings, Interviews and Digital Rants 2006-2009, by Ai Weiwei, edited and translated by Lee Ambrozy. You can find it on the MIT Press website, and available through Amazon.
Copyright © Ruth Skilbeck 2011
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