One can be ‘on message’, meaning he constantly communicates a specific aura and in this way keeps in touch with his targeted audience (Silverstein, 2003). & Warsh, L. (2018). The Chinese government has tried to shut Ai Weiwei down several times by detaining him or putting him under house arrest, meaning he was not allowed to leave Beijing for several years. What is your unrealised project?That will be death. And art can break boundaries: there’s no “refugees” or other names, even “terrorists”, we’re all human. What I cook depends on what’s there when I open the refrigerator. In China, my studio was often destroyed. It has problems, but it’s still there and this doesn’t add more problems. In the new book, simply titled Ai Weiwei (Taschen, 2016), essays explore Ai Weiwei's artistic legacy to date, alongside the political activism that continues to inform his art. Ai Weiwei, Chinese artist and activist whose work included sculptural installations, architectural projects, photographs, and videos. But what is Ai Weiwei’s message and how does he put it forward? Ai Weiwei. We never do anything without totally understanding the situation, or at least thinking that we totally understand the situation. I haven’t met anybody who has come back to tell me their experience. They really love them. For the most part, anyway. I can analyse music with my musician friends and conductors and they say: “You understand music so well!” But it’s like a parallel world in which I’m an alien. Ai Weiwei started tweeting after his personal blog was shut down. But I’m very fortunate I committed to fighting China because China is the ideal opponent. So, in my work, I’d rather warn about wh at will happen if we are not more sympathetic towards refugees. Ai Weiwei - An Activist. Weiwei is a conceptual artist and activist, born in China. So it’s very important for me, even if I understand very little about doing it. Even doctors or politicians, they should have vision and they should understand human behaviour and try to offer possibilities for surviving intellectually or physically. Of course, it’s very hard to win against a communist regime, but you never die if you keep fighting. Among the people involved in the making of this documentary were the closest family members of Weiwei … But besides art, social media is most important in carrying out his message. CBS News. Ai Weiwei is also active on Instagram. (2011). Here we can say that his critique is not limited to the state of China. For instance, songs including "A Change is Gonna Come" (Cooke, 1964), "We Shall Overcome" (Tindley, 1900), and "Freedom Highway" (The Staples Singers, 1965) were an important part of the Civil Rights movement. “When a friend showed me the space, it was in a very bad condition,” Ai recalls. You can only warn people what the consequences will be of not doing it. So it’s a time for people to rethink what Britain is and how to survive. We had the kind of happiness one will never experience living on Park Avenue or in some kind of palace. More than 60.000 people lost their lives, among them were many children at schools or universities due to poorly built school buildings. Among other things, he posts a lot videos of people reading parts of his book Humanity. Lempert, M. & Silverstein, M. (2012). Weiwei, A. Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses?Ian Tinkler, ShetlandI have no preference. He also says that he will not stop doing this, as he does not want to live in a world were truth is constantly being denied, and states that the people need to raise their voices. Photograph: Steffen Roth/The Observer, Ai Weiwei: ‘An artist must be an activist’. Weiwei is often referred to as China's most famous artist. Retrieved 9 January, 2019. His art works are mostly related to political issues and events. Ai Weiwei sparks social media flames in China. In 1981, Ai Weiwei moved to the US to study abroad. Living in China has not been easy for Ai Weiwei. Given you’ve designed buildings as well as installed art in a whole variety of different spaces, what can artists and architects learn from each other?This is a bit technical, but I think artists and architects are the same profession, if they’re good ones. Sixteen years later they returned to Beijing. This is something that many people in China do not dare to do. He forms his image through tackling or taking a stand on certain issues that play an important role in the public sphere. As the son of the Chinese poet Ai Quing, who was accused in the Anti-Rightist movement, Ai Weiwei and his family were sent off to live in Shihezi. However Ai Weiwei used a VPN to get around China’s Great Firewall and so he was able to keep on sharing his message. Art, activism and the geopolitical imagination: Ai Weiwei's ‘Sunflower Seeds’. We have started to analyse and measure and categorise them. He took the 99-year lease on his Berlin studio in 2010 when he was starting to worry about his safety – his freedom – in China. Creatures of Politics: Media, Message, and the American Presidency. As many of his tweets were in Chinese, the Chinese blog Love Ai Weiwei translated many of them (Anonymous, 2011): In this country, tyranny deprives not only ordinary people of their rights to life, but also their rights to express their opinions, including the right to question, the right to inquire and the right to know. i Weiwei’s studio can be found behind unmarked, black metal doors in a grand square in the old east Berlin. He also began posting the names of the deceased children on their birthdays and posting recordings of people reading the names of the lost children on his Twitter account (Weiwei, 2018). This has not gone unnoticed, as the Chinese government has tried to shut him down several times. It seems like he is just retweeting what is being said and not his opinion. Are the people in Hong Kong fighting a lost cause?Anonymous, Hong Kong I have said this before: they have already won. Having almost 365 thousand followers on Twitter and more than 154 thousand tweets, Ai Weiwei remains highly active on Twitter. He is as much a sociopolitical commentator as an artist and in this way he wants to show people that the world needs to change. Do you still see those acts in the same way you did then?Amy Thompson, MexicoMy work has a solid understanding, but, at the same time, it happens intuitively. The studio now has natural light from goodness knows where, and is clinically clean and dry. https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-remembering-haus-der-kunst-muenchen... https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/feb/01/ai-weiwei-poses-as-... Ai Weiwei poses as drowned Syrian refugee toddler once again. WhatsApp. What does the idea of the nation state mean to you?If you take a historical view, our map is always changing. It’s very costly, but they give them to their loved ones as wedding or engagement presents. (August 10, 2009 19:26:06), From 2009 till 2013, many tweets were like the ones above concerning the state of living in China and the repression of freedom of speech. It is important to remember that Ai is not the first artist to convey charged political and cultural messages through art. In 1981, Ai Weiwei moved to the US to study abroad. In free societies, people often have the romantic feeling that better art is produced in circumstances of hardship. Although the leadership of networked social movements may not always be obviously visible, as social media do facilitate complex and ‘soft’ forms of leadership, there is always someone constructing the public assembly. In my life I have gone through pretty much every single trauma: communism, postmodernism, post-capitalism and globalisation, but the only project I think everyone realises is death. (2017). Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been making political waves for decades, but his current shows are especially relevant to the United States. But seriously, in China, all the activists love these seeds, they call them the seeds of freedom. With posts about his book Humanity, the focus has shifted from only China to the whole Western world and its refugee crisis. We can refer to this as a networked social movement whose birth is ‘usually triggered by a spark of indignation either related to a specific event or to peak of disgust with the actions of rulers. In the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012), Ai tells in an interview that his blogging and digital activism are having an effect on the government, as young people see what he is talking about and spread the word on other media platforms. We’re still working on that. Ai Weiwei posing as drowned Syrian refugee. Rationality is easier for any audience to understand. This movement did not only stay online but was directed to come together in public space and investigate the Sichuan earthquake. ‘The tragedy is not only that people have lost their lives. Marcel Duchamp’s work, The Large Glass [also known as The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even] looks very casual. This is also in line with his controversial recreation of the drowned refugee child and his documentary Human Flow (2018), about the refugee crisis. Or the more intellectual was: ‘Oh, it’s only a few taxi drivers.’ And I said, ‘Yes, but that is a long ride.’”, Ai guffaws, but he’s totally serious. It doesn’t matter if it is such a good dish: “Can you redo it?” No, not possible. In the book, Ai says: ‘The tragedy is not only that people have lost their lives. “Olafur is my dear friend, but we don’t see each other very often, maybe once every three months,” says Ai. Germans, he said, “deeply don’t like foreigners”. Almost a year after the team had collected over 5000 names, the blog was shut down by the government as too many people were following the investigation. It all started in 2008 when the Sichuan earthquake happened. It is very hard to predict the future, but it seems like the situation is not going to be easily resolved and will have a strong impact. While Ai’s art was lauded internationally, its frequently provocative dimension as well as his political outspokenness triggered forms of repression from Chinese authorities. Social media and contemporary activism. When looking at Ai Weiwei’s art pieces, it often is related to political topics. A lot of videos posted with Ai's book Humanity. 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