What Are Your Thoughts on the Capacity of Art and on the Role of Artists Ai Weiwei?
The philosopher Richard Kearney surmised that "…politics is far too grave a thing for the political leader and fine art is far too potent a medium for the artist. Beyond this entrenchment is a place where the two can run into." For art though, this eye basis can seem uncomfortable, and a Kearney summarised, "…t o suggest that art become political is not to suggest that information technology go politics. To practice then would exist to suggest that fine art carelessness its essential role as life in suspense, behind and below and other than itself ." ( The Crane Handbag, Vol. 1, No. 1, Art and Politics (Bound, 1977), pp. viii-16)
This may seem a paradoxical place for art to exist, but in June 2017 I was confronted with the truth of this statement. At the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen 6,000 refugee life jackets (nerveless from refugees in Lesbos) barricaded the building'south massive façade windows, jarring the pleasantries of one of the city'southward busiest tourist streets. This piece of work, 'Soleil Levant' (Rising Sunday) by Ai Weiwei was exactly as Kearney described, it was life in suspense; making you confront the gravity and scale of our earth's refugee crisis in a manner that travelled through your cognitive dissonances, to a indicate in your mind where you merely understood.
Ai Weiwei is an artist, renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena beyond today'southward geopolitical earth. I spoke to him to learn more than virtually his art.
Q: Where does your fine art come up from?
[Ai Weiwei] I grew up nether Chairman Mao'south rule during the Cultural Revolution. This was a repressive communist society completely defective resource. My father, Ai Qing, was a poet. Alongside other intellectuals of his generation, he was persecuted by the Communist Party. My father was accused of being a rightist during the "Anti-Rightist Movement" and exiled to a labor campsite in northwest China. I grew up in the camp and watched equally he was forced to clean public toilets. He was also prohibited from writing for 20 years.
Afterwards Mao'due south death in 1976, my father was rehabilitated and our family was allowed to return to Beijing. I attended film school and participated in the first democratic movements. I left for the United States in 1981 and settled in New York in 1983. I briefly attended art school, held odd jobs, gambled, and lived an independent life—I was gratuitous. It was in New York that I was first exposed to commercialism—this constant search for profit and material security at the expense of individualism and humanity. I could never experience comfy under those conditions.
Subsequently twelve years in the United states, I returned to Beijing. By this time, China was nevertheless an disciplinarian social club merely one that had adopted land capitalism. During this menstruum of rapid industrialization, People's republic of china existed in a paradoxical state of authoritarian rule—with extreme restrictions placed on ideology and free expression—and anarchy in every other facet of life.
In 2005, I was introduced to the internet. Sina, a web portal in China, invited me to begin blogging on their platform. Through my blog, I was able to reach an audience of millions. Subsequently the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, I initiated a Citizens' Investigation into the student deaths. I openly published our enquiry—every student'south name, their birthdays, their parent'due south names, the schools they attended—on my blog. On June i, 2009, the Chinese regime shut downward my blog.
Those experiences made me. I am a product of my time. Without the internet and globalization, Ai Weiwei, as y'all know him, would not possible. My art comes from those influences and the persistent struggle to understand our fourth dimension.
Q: How do governments utilize art to further their ain calendar?
[Ai Weiwei] The extremist governments of the by—the Third Reich, the Stalin regime, Chairman Mao'southward party—were all well aware of the power of art. They viewed art equally equal in importance to their military and police force command. Chairman Mao used to say that the communists had two of import armies—ane wielding the barrel of the gun and the other wielding the barrel of the pen. Power is seized with the gun and maintained with the pen. Controlling public opinion through propaganda and misinformation is the most critical task of an authoritarian power.
Propaganda still exists and persists throughout the world, fifty-fifty in the "civilized" West. The only difference today is propaganda is non simply propagated by the land merely likewise by forces of capitalism.
Capitalism influences our lifestyle, shapes public stance, and impacts education. Information technology alters our sense of right and wrong and warps our understanding of justice and fairness. The modernistic media—inextricably tied to upper-case letter—actively manipulates the public. The nearly bright character of our time has been the enslavement of gild to this profiteering system.
Q: How can fine art fight dorsum against tyranny, oppression and political systems?
[Ai Weiwei] The strongest feature of art is that information technology belongs to the individual. Art is an expression of individualism and the opposite of oppressive dogma.
Q: What is the part of art in peacebuilding and reconciliation?
[Ai Weiwei] Fine art is necessary for the human mind. Art is about our dreams, fears, and imagination. Art is about everything outside of the system. It is a capital punishment for art when it is within the system.
Q: How tin the abstruse convey the literal in the mind of the viewer?
[Ai Weiwei] Artists must trust that they can chronicle with essential homo needs, similar the animate of air and the thirst for h2o. Whatever is produced should share those essential elements of life. In that sense, you have a trust and a common language to limited yourself and to communicate with others.
Q: Are you hopeful for our futurity?
[Ai Weiwei] I'm grateful to be alive during this time. I can't remember of a meliorate time than this very moment. If yous take a longer view of history, everything progresses naturally. What is happening today is a failure of liberalism, which has lost affect with reality. Nothing is guaranteed. Freedom without struggle is an illusion.
I love problems. How we deal with problems defines who we are and what values we stand for.
View Interviewee Biography
Ai Weiwei is renowned for making potent aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena beyond today'south geopolitical world. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai uses a broad range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine gild and its values. Recent exhibitions include: Mayhap, Mayhap Not at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, Law of the Journeying at the National Gallery in Prague, Ai Weiwei. Libero at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, #SafePassage at Foam in Amsterdam, translocation – transformation at 21er Haus in Vienna, Ai Weiwei at the Majestic University of Arts in London, and @Big: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz in San Francisco.
Ai was born in Beijing in 1957 and currently resides and works in both Beijing and Berlin. Ai is the electric current Einstein Visiting Professor at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), and he is the recipient of the 2015 Ambassador of Conscience Award from Immunity International and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation.
Source: https://thoughteconomics.com/ai-weiwei-interview/
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