Refusing to bend
Destruction of studio will boost Ai Weiwei’s cause
Ai Weiwei has been celebrated in Vienna, praised in Paris, lauded in London, welcomed in Berlin and repeatedly feted in New York.
Pittsburgh counts itself fortunate to have hosted his works in 2016, and he’ll have not one or two but three exhibits in Los Angeles this fall.
He is China’s most famous contemporary artist, renowned for his imagination, artistic skill and conscience — all of which threaten the communist government that fecklessly ordered his Beijing studio torn down without warning over the weekend.
Only morally bankrupt regimes try to inhibit their nations’ cultural flowering and artistic growth. Only the most intellectually sterile fear the fertility of their citizens’ minds. In addition to China under Xi Jinping, think of the Nazis’ gleeful bookburning and ignorant assault on modern art. Think of the Soviets’ efforts to infuse their empty sloganeering into music and literature and the flowering of underground writing, known as samizdat, that spread throughout the communist block in defiance of the cultural Iron Curtain.
Much of Mr. Ai’s work challenges the government, but not all of it does. His 2017 movie “Human Flow” chronicles the refugee crisis in 23 countries. In 2016, he suspended giant renderings of fish and other creatures from Chinese lore above the sales floor of a Paris department store, while outside he displayed other works, such as depictions of surveillance cameras, speaking to the repression endemic to Chinese society and specific to him.
The weekend assault was nothing new for Mr. Ai, who had a studio torn down by authorities in 2011. He’s also been beaten, bullied, imprisoned and had his passport revoked.
Efforts to repress Mr. Ai have failed; his celebrity, his perseverance and perhaps even his creativity increase with each outrage perpetrated against him. One of his best known works — a self-taken photo of Mr. Ai’s middle finger raised in Tiananmen Square, site of a brutal crackdown on student demonstrators in 1989 — sums up his resilience.
The neighborhood that housed the studio is undergoing gentrification, and that may have been the proximate reason for the building’s elimination. Mr. Ai may be among many other victims of a redevelopment effort that pushes out the poor and others who stand in the way of the government’s vision of urban progress. But there’s no doubt that the Chinese leadership considers the displacement of Mr. Ai — and damage to some of his works — a nice bonus.
Make no mistake, this will prove to be just another rash action that buoys Mr. Ai’s stature. According to artnet.com, debris from the demolished studio may be repurposed in some of the artist’s future work. One can almost read the press release now.
On Oct. 13, the 57th Edition of the Carnegie International, an exhibit of contemporary art from around the globe, opens at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Oakland. Mr. Ai’s work will not be featured, but organizers should recognize him — and his struggle — in some way.
Mr. Ai may be among many other victims of a redevelopment effort that pushes out the poor and others who stand in the way of the government’s vision of urban progress. But there’s no doubt that the Chinese leadership considers the displacement of Mr. Ai — and damage to some of his works — a nice bonus.