A letter to China

I HAD many things planned for my recent vacation in London but visiting galleries was not high among my priorities. My friend and host, however, had other plans and at the very top of his “ must do’ list” was Ai Weiwei’s first major institutional survey of his artistic output at the Royal Academy of Arts.

“You can miss anything but not this art exhibition. I really would like you to see it. It is an eye-opener,” my friend eagerly informed me. 

Despite a love of art, all I really know about the Chinese artist and activist relates to his house arrest, the fact that his passport was confiscated by the Chinese government and the donations from his fans, some in the form of bank notes folded into paper planes and thrown over his studio wall in Beijing, to help him pay the more than 12 million yuan in back taxes demanded by the Beijing Local Taxation Bureau. 

He is one of those artists who are more famous than their works.

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing to the Chinese painter-turned-poet Ai Qing. Trained as a painter, Ai Qing went to study in Paris in 1929 and returned to China in 1932. The Nationalist Party imprisoned him for his involvement in leftist circles. In jail, he couldn’t paint so he wrote poetry imbued with the spirit of the revolution, which later brought him fame. He joined the Communist Party after his release and became the most revered poet of the era. Ai Qing was later denounced during the Anti-Rightist Movement, one year after Ai Weiwei was born. The whole family was sent to labour camp and subsequently exiled to Xinjiang, where the poet was assigned to clean public toilets.

Ai Qing and his family were allowed to return to Beijing in 1976 after the death of Mao Zedong and the end of the Cultural Revolution. 

In 1978, Ai Weiwei enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy and studied animation. Wishing to get away from Big Brother in his homeland, he went to the United States and stayed there from 1981 to 1993. Living mostly in New York City, he studied briefly at Parsons School of Design and attended the Art Students League of New York from 1983 to 1986 before dropping out and making a living by working odd jobs and drawing street portraits. 

Ai Weiwei came back to China in 1993 when his father became ill. His involvement in the design of Beijing's Olympic stadium brought him international fame. His activism matured in 2008 in response to two events, the Beijing Olympics and the Sichuan earthquake. In an interview with the international media, he said that the Beijing Olympics was just the propaganda for the ruling party to advertise its glory to the world and he regretted designing the Olympic stadium. In the wake of the devastating May 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Ai launched a “Citizens’ Investigation” to document how and why so many children had died in the poorly constructed schools. 

His works of art clearly illustrate how a man’s past can make his present. Ai transforms materials to convey his ideas, working with wood, porcelain, marble, jade and even steel in different contexts and media to deliver his message.

Standing in the courtyard of the Royal Academy of Arts, the monumental “Tree”, consisting of eight individual trees, each about seven metres tall, welcomes visitors. Held together by hidden mortise, tenon joins and large industrial bolts, the trees look natural from a distance but artificial from close up. Ai uses them to represent the modern Chinese nation, where ethnic diversity has been brought together to form ‘One China’.

A gigantic chandelier made of bicycles hanging in the central rotunda of the Academy is stunningly beautiful. Ai combined his interest in light as an object and how a bicycle can use its structure to grow according to its own logic to create this work. The white crystals, sourced from the same place as the grand chandelier in the vast Great Hall of the People in Tiananmen Square, are suspended from the rims of the bicycles’ wheels and cascade down in illuminated circles to create a dramatic sculptural installation.

Ai remakes many of his works from ready-made and destroyed objects and has recycled ancient carved-wood fragments from a demolished temple, a Han dynasty vase and Qing dynasty furniture. His arts represent Chinese culture, the conditions of Chinese life and livelihoods of people that were demolished by communism. 

The three photos of the artist dropping a Han dynasty urn refer to the wilful destruction of China’s historic buildings and antique objects that took place in the decade following Chairman Mao’s instigation of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. His impassive facial expression represents the authorities in many of China’s cities, who have sacrificed historic buildings and valuable historical artefacts in pursuit of economic development.

The key installation is “Straight”, which relates to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. Some 20 state schools, which were notoriously badly built with materials so porous and flimsy that they were commonly referred to as “tofu-dreg”, collapsed in the tremor, killing more than 5,000 students. As well as displaying the names of the students who died, the artist has installed a monumental floor-based sculpture formed from 90 tons of steel rebar found at the site. Ai collected bent and twisted rebars – the steel reinforcing bars used in the construction of concrete buildings – and painstakingly straightened them by hand to its original pre-construction and pre-earthquake state to make a monument to the victims of the earthquake and an abiding reminder of the corruption leading to substandard and hasty construction methods in building state schools. 

Six iron boxes in the final gallery give us some insights of Ai’s experience during his 81-day detention. Each box features half-sized effigies of Ai and two guards. The watchful guards stand over him as he eats, sleeps, showers and uses the toilet. Visitors are invited to peep through the window and climb the stairs to take a peek inside the rooms to witness the degrading act of state brutality.

Ai’s message to China screams loud and clear through all his works. Almost a month later, that same voice is still echoing at the back of my mind.

 

HITTING HOME

The art exhibition “Ai Weiwei” has been organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London and is curated by the Academy’s artistic director Tim Marlow and senior curator Adrian Locke in close collaboration with Ai Weiwei.

It’s on show until December 13. 

Find out more at www.RoyalAcademy.org.uk.