Ai WeiWei at Royal Academy (actually seen)

Contemporary and Old Art Reviews

Ai WeiWei at Royal Academy (actually seen)

Postby jasperjoffe » Wed Sep 30, 2015 2:26 pm

I felt like I'd seen most of it before, take a contemporary form (furniture, vitrine, chandelier, pile) and add a bit of knowing Chinese cliché, or worthy politics, throw in some crafty production values to give a pleasing aesthetic. Can't remember where I've seen the joined up crazy tables, but certainly somewhere, perhaps a degree show. Them there is the idea writ large, or actually illustrated large, of some inarguably important human suffering event (names of victims on walls) with some numerological nonsense of "honouring" them with x number of objects cos x people died, and it looks like art!
Lot of rich tourists were snapping everything (good on him for allowing mobiles, it adds to the theatrics), and you can't help admire Weiwei's courage and humour standing up to his oppressive toto government. The best thing was the containers with the dioramas of his incarceration, which people had to peer into or get on a step to look down into, about 1/2 life-size, they made absurd/comical/menacing/Disney/selfie a horrifying experience, so Kafka.

The rest really isn't much, pretend art for people to photograph.
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiwei
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