[spectre] Interview with Ai Weiwei
EAF Director
director at eaf.asn.au
Tue Jul 31 02:55:10 CEST 2007
>Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2007 16:28:16 -0400 (EDT)
>From: christina mcphee <christina112 at earthlink.net>
>To: empyre list <empyre at gamera.cofa.unsw.edu.au>
>
>a followup on the Chinese visitors to D12
>
>Interview
>July 25, 2007
>
>cc'd from artkrush http://artkrush.com/
>
>
>
>"Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent figures
>in Chinese contemporary art and culture. The son
>of legendary poet Ai Qing, the younger Ai was a
>founding member of the avant-garde Stars groups
>in the late '70s. After living and working in
>New York from 1981 to1993, he returned to China
>and helped establish the famous Beijing East
>Village. Artkrush contributor Samantha Culp
>interviews Ai about his groundbreaking work at
>documenta 12, including the Fairytale project,
>for which he brought 1,001 Chinese citizens to
>Kassel - home of the Brothers Grimm.
>
>AK: How did the idea for Fairytale come about,
>and how did you find 1,001 people in China
>willing to participate in a project in Germany?
>
>AW: I grew up in Xinjiang within a hardcore
>communist society - we got all our education in
>labor camps. Today, it's a very different time;
>the development of political, economic, and
>technical systems has brought us to a completely
>new age.
>
>At the same time, I think the old systems and
>power structures, based on the old thinking, are
>still here - especially in China, but also in
>the West. I believe that personal awareness and
>experience is absolutely essential for social
>change; that change should be based on an
>individual confrontation with reality.
>
>When documenta asked me to do a project, I
>really wanted to do this exercise, Fairytale, of
>bringing 1,001 people to the event as a kind of
>disruptive intervention. It wasn't a specific
>commentary on documenta - any other show or fair
>still operates within the old framework of
>thought. This way of presenting [art], the kind
>of communication, who's doing what, how it's
>received - it's all based on the old structure.
>My project draws from personal effort and
>results in an individual engagement, no matter
>who the viewer is - somebody who's art-savvy or
>somebody who doesn't know art at all, but is
>just willing to have contact with this
>experience.
>
>I recruited participants on my personal blog.
>The whole process went so well on the Internet;
>we couldn't have done it otherwise. People
>really had a sense of trust in this new channel
>of expression, which was very encouraging. I
>didn't know them, they didn't know me, but we
>could still communicate well. Still, it was more
>or less intangible until the time when everyone
>actually got on the bus. I was very touched and
>impressed to finally see everyone as a real
>person.
>
>AK: What were some of the biggest challenges of
>bringing such a large group to Kassel?
>
>AW: It's still a miracle to me that this
>happened without any big complications or
>tragedies. When I gave my concept to my
>gallerist, Urs Meile, he didn't hesitate. He
>knew the budget it would need, but immediately
>thought it was a good idea. A week later, he
>already had the contract - I didn't even read
>it, because I have complete trust in him. [Two
>private Swiss foundations helped fund the
>project.]
>
>For the participants, everyone had to get a
>passport, which isn't easy in China - you need
>to return to your home province just to apply.
>But people just did it. Nobody in those 1,001
>ever mentioned it to me, but I know it was
>difficult in terms of money and time.
>
>We designed a dormitory in Kassel for them so
>that they could eat well, sleep well, and have a
>good, relaxing time. On one hand, they retain a
>sense of security and a sense of identity, but
>they're also cut off from their original
>sociocultural structure. We did everything
>possible to find the right location, to design
>the interior and the installation structure to
>create symbolic surroundings for their mental
>condition. We even brought cooks who made
>homestyle Chinese dishes three times a day.
>
>They came in five groups of 200 each - the
>maximum that the dormitory could hold and that
>the airline could accommodate.
>
>AK: In the end, how do you think the
>participants felt about the whole experience?
>
>AW: They came from all over China. I don't
>think anyone from Taiwan or Tibet applied, but
>the rest - 20 provinces - are all represented.
>They have all kinds of backgrounds: government
>people, policemen, people without jobs, workers,
>farmers, gardeners, fishermen. Almost none of
>them have been outside China before, and nobody
>speaks German.
>
>They came excited, and they left... well, some
>are sorry they couldn't stay a bit longer. It's
>like a dream; they said it's affected their
>lives and the way they look at the world. Maybe
>that's just sentimental poetics, but anyhow, I
>really think a new awareness has been added to
>their lives.
>
>AK: You also created physical works as a part
>of Fairytale - a massive construction of doors,
>salvaged from Ming- and Qing-dynasty houses and
>an installation of 1,001 chairs, from the same
>historical periods. During a storm in Kassel,
>the open-air door construction collapsed, and
>you decided to leave it as is.
>
>AW: I think that an exhibition is just a moment
>in the whole process. Of course, some artists
>might want to make a permanent, unique, perfect
>condition [of their work], but I never think
>that way.
>
>The structural work involved 1,000 pieces of
>doors and windows, and it took 20 people 20 days
>to put it up. After six days of exhibition, a
>storm destroyed it - it wasn't completely
>broken, but it was heavily damaged. They're old
>windows from the ruins of China, and they
>quickly became ruins again. For me, that's OK.
>The weight hasn't changed, just the shape. If I
>"correct" it, I'm saying that this shape isn't
>as "good" as the one before.
>
>The chairs for Fairytale were put in and moved
>around the exhibition halls, one for each
>participant. People loved it. It gives the
>exhibition a very special feeling, because the
>1,001 chairs have been everywhere. And
>[laughing], when you look at contemporary art
>today, you need a place to sit.
>
>AK: These sculptures, as well as much of your
>previous work and interest in architecture, seem
>to blur the lines between "art" and "design."
>How do you feel that the two overlap? Is there
>any meaningful line between them?
>
>AW: That's always the questionŠ how or when it
>becomes art, why is this real, what's fake, and
>what's the value related to it. If I design, I
>change a condition that can either be art or a
>chair. With these chairs, I didn't change
>anything. The chairs show the status of the
>owner - people have a hierarchy everywhere.
>Traveling to Kassel, they've totally lost their
>design context, but I didn't do anything but add
>the title to the bottom of the chair. Like
>Fairytale itself, it uses the concept of design
>as a readymade to question and challenge these
>categories.
>
>AK: What interests you about architecture?
>
>AW: I think it's everywhere. Architecture to me
>is more or less a gesture. It relates to the
>situation today of what is necessary and
>unnecessary, what to control and not to control.
>It's the same kind of exercise as art, but under
>very different conditions. It's much more
>political because you have to deal with state
>policy, development, labor, and production, and
>then it always becomes a social activity because
>it's public.
>
>AK: Particularly in designing art spaces, such
>as the new gallery spaces, artists' studios, and
>cultural center in Caochangdi, outside Beijing,
>how do you deal with the constraints of the
>"white cube"?
>
>AW: In an art space, you design for no
>particular user, and you try to find a maximum
>usage for the space and its possible uses. The
>spatial conditions must be right, as well as the
>lighting. It should have an identity; at the
>same time, the identity should fit into the
>landscape.
>
>AK: What do you think about the current state
>of Chinese art and the influence of the market
>on it?
>
>AW: All of these bubbles are made by people,
>and people understand them. There are always
>bubbles. They affect the quality of work and the
>attention given, but I don't think it will last,
>and I don't think the good work will be affected.
>
>AK: What projects do you currently have in progress?
>
>AW: I have to prepare several shows - a lot of
>deadlines to meet. I'm doing a large documentary
>film [about Fairytale], which currently consists
>of 1,500 hours of footage. The final film will
>be over six or eight hours, and there are about
>20 directors working on it. It follows the
>participants before their trip - what's on their
>minds, what their lives are like. I want to show
>it to the general public. It may be the largest
>single documentary ever made.
>
>AK: Are you considering moving more into filmmaking?
>
>AW: That's what I'm thinking; I'm a little bit
>tired of producing objects. Film is still
>attractive to me because I know very little
>about it. I like all kinds of films. I think
>that films are a kind of fantasy where we try to
>make another reality. We can be charmed. It's
>magical.
>
>Ai Weiwei's Fairytale can be seen at documenta
>12 in Kassel, Germany, until September 23."
>
><http://christinamcphee.net>
><http://naxsmash.net>
>_______________________________________________
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