“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry” Questions

Source.

On Tuesday evening I was invited to watch the new film Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry streaming in my living room. I invited a few friends over and hosted an intimate screening. The first two-thirds of the film consisted of documentation I had seen from various short films about Ai Weiwei (such as Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds and Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei?) but the last part included some clips I hadn’t seen. Regardless, the film was well put together and informative and paints a picture of Ai Weiwei. Though his art is clearly a main thread of the film, they put great emphasis on him as a dissident in China. After the screening director, Alison Klayman, hosted a breif qestion and answer session. I didn’t have time to squeeze a question in and would like to share some of my questions here. Full disclosure, many of my questions are based on a class a took last semester called Post Asia. If you’re interested in a more thorough review read this article on Art Journal. I definitely recommend seeing it in the theatre when it is released in July.

My questions:

Is Never Sorry showing in China? Does the Chinese public have access to and know about Ai Weiwei’s actions?

I am curious about language. So much of the film is in English and the majority of the tweets highlighted in the movie are in English. Despite that, many of Ai Weiwei’s works comment on Chinese culture and people.

Who is Ai Weiwei’s audience? Does the group he is representing have access to the sources (Twitter, Blogging, etc.) that he uses to promote his ideas?

Finally, I want to congratulate Alison Klayman. She chose to tackle incredibly volatile subject matter and she executed it beautifully. I greatly look forward to her next project.

The Bean and More

Anish Kapoor, Shooting into the corner, 2008-2009

This work was brought to my attention by e-flux, read about it here, it is now on display as part of a a retrospective of Kapoor’s work at Pinchuk Art Center.

Last Sunday marked the day of my graduation from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Yes, now you can call me Master. The graduating students of SAIC have the privilege of walking across the stage of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millenium Park to receive their diplomas.  A smidgen to the west rests the infamous Chicago “Bean.” The “Bean’s” title is Cloud Gate and it was created by Anish Kapoor. This morning as I was wading through the emails I’ve neglected the past few weeks I came across another work by Kapoor and I thought the many visitors we had last weekend would find it interesting to see another work created by the “Bean” artist.