Ai Weiwei Exhibit

My sister and I went to Art Gallery of Ontario to see the Ai Weiwei Exhibit last Sunday.  I can't stop thinking about it.

He's a Chinese artist who lived in New York for ten years, then returned to China to live.  His father and friends were persecuted by the government of China.  No surprise:  China doesn't like people with individual or controversial ideas.  

The exhibit was profound.  

In an earthquake in China, a great many children were killed due to poor construction of the schools.  Ai called it 'tofu' construction.  The government denied any such thing, since it funded the construction.

In protest, Ai constructed a huge snake of backpacks, each backpack representing one of the students killed.

He also printed a giant chart with the name, gender, age, and school each student attended, along with a recording of the name of each student read aloud.  The tape took over 3 hours to cycle through the names.

 This photo doesn't begin to show how many names are on the list.  The wall is about 20' x 60'.


Additionally, he took rebar from the devastated concrete buildings, had it straightened and displayed in a huge, undulating display on the floor.  Who would think that rusted, straightened rebar could be so sensual and beautiful?

I've been thinking about the show all week, and the imaginative ways he has developed to display protest.

How would I, as an artist, protray our displeasure with the Canadian government?  My ideas are so lame and pedestrian.  

The Senate scandal:  make pigs out of the red chairs the senators sit in? Too obvious.

The horror of Lac Megantic? Fireworks in the shape of boxcars or oil tankers?  'Keep On and Play With Fire' signs??  Boring.

Ai Weiwei has developed a way to communicate big ideas in a universal way.  He is resilient, keeping his protests in spite of police-inflicted brain injury, house arrest and the literal destruction of his studio.

I bow down to him in respect and appreciation.