Displaying items by tag: Ai Weiwei

Anish Kapoor has cancelled plans to present his sculptures at the National Museum of China in Beijing, in protest against the continuing detention of Ai Weiwei. He had been asked by the British Council to consider a show at the newly renovated museum in Tiananmen Square as part the “UK Now” festival in China late next year.

Kapoor’s spokeswoman confirmed to The Art Newspaper that he had been invited to China, but “he is not going to proceed in view of the detention of Ai Weiwei.” Ai, an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, was arrested in Beijing in early April for alleged “economic crimes”.

Discussions began about a potential exhibition at the National Museum of China last October, when two directors of London’s Lisson Gallery (which represents Kapoor, stand 2.1/K12 at Art Basel) were in Beijing. Provisional plans were subsequently made for Kapoor to travel to Beijing this month to view the space and talk with the museum. The idea would have been to mount an exhibition with a major new work.

A man in marble is giving me the finger.

I'm at Art HK, Asia's leading art fair, and the one-finger salute is from the 2007 sculpture "Marble Arm" by outspoken artist-activist Ai Weiwei. As we all should know by now, Ai was detained by Beijing authorities almost two months ago in an ongoing campaign against Chinese activists. Ai has since been accused of tax evasion.

"Marble Arm" is linked to a series of provocative snapshots featuring Ai raising his middle finger to various symbols of power from the White House to Tiananmen Square.  On reserve, it has a prospective buyer who is willing to pay $280,000 for the work.

And today, that marble middle finger is greeting prospective buyers and curious visitors at Art HK's Galerie Urs Meile exhibition space.

But it is a lonely protest. Among the 260 galleries at the international art fair, "Marble Arm" is the only work by Ai on display.

There are a few "Where is Ai Weiwei?" freebie pins and t-shirts available from Galerie Urs Meile and two other dealers at the fair. But for the most part, at Asian's largest art fair, China's most well-known artist is noticeably missing.

Both the United States and the European Union have called for the artist's release, but the commercial art community in Asia seems to be taking a more, shall we say, diplomatic approach. Art HK director Magnus Renfrew calls Ai Weiwei "an artist who we greatly admire."

And yet Renfrew delivers even more praise for the city of Hong Kong "where freedom of expression is greatly valued, and freedom of expression is protected under the Bill of Rights of Hong Kong and under the Basic Law of Hong Kong.  So it is a very good place for the full variety of voices to be heard."

Those voices are being heard far from the gleaming halls of the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center.

In a gritty industrial space in the city's Chai Wan district, 50 Hong Kong artists are speaking out against Ai's detention in a non-selling exhibition called "Love the Future." In Mandarin, it reads as "Ai Wei Lai," a pun on "Ai Wei Wei" and a code name used by the artist's online supporters when he first went missing.

Ai Weiwei’s first major public art exhibition will be unveiled today, despite the fact that the Chinese artist is still missing.

New York's Central Park is the first stop in a worldwide tour of ‘Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads’. The artwork consists of twelve bronze heads, each depicting an animal from the Chinese zodiac, all weighing over 800lbs (362 kg), and will be positioned at the Pulitzer fountain at the entrance to the park.

The internationally acclaimed artist and outspoken critic of China disappeared at the beginning of April. Reports suggested that the artist was arrested by Chinese authorities as he tried to board a plane to Hong Kong. He has not been heard from since, although newspapers in Hong Kong reported Weiwei was arrested for ‘tax evasion and destroying evidence’.

The exhibition, which will also be at London’s Somerset House from the May 12, was inspired by the fountain clock created for the Qianlong Emperor in the Eighteenth century. Placed in the gardens of the Old Summer Palace outside Beijing, the clock consisted of 12 bronze heads which spouted water to tell the time.

In 1860 the Palace was ransacked by French and British troops and the heads were taken. So far only seven heads have been located. Weiwei has reinterpreted and re-created the clock by increasing their size. Each of the heads with the base measures ten feet in height.

The artworks highlight questions of looting and repatriation while extending the artist’s ongoing exploration of the 'fake' and the copy in relation to the original.

“My work is always dealing with real or fake, authenticity and value and how value relates to current political and social understandings and misunderstandings,” the artist said in a statement about the heads before his arrest.

A lawyer linked to Ai Weiwei went missing on Thursday night and a designer from the company handling the artist's affairs was taken by police six days ago, according to supporters.

Friends have not been able to reach Liu Xiaoyuan for almost 24 hours. The rights lawyer posted a message on a microblog at 8pm on Thursday saying he was being "followed by identified people". His phone is switched off.

Last week he said he would "of course" act for Ai if requested. He spent several hours at a police station on the day Ai disappeared, although his brief detention did not appear to relate to the artist. It occurred after he requested to visit a female activist and officers reportedly berated him for tweeting about another missing lawyer.

Separately, a letter issued online on Friday said plainclothes police seized designer Liu Zhenggang, 49, at his home in Beijing on 9 April and no one had been able to reach him since. Liu worked for FAKE, the design and architecture firm that handles Ai's affairs and belongs to the artist's wife.

Police did not respond to queries about the two men.

Ai's detention has sparked an international outcry, and his case is far from alone. The last two months have seen dozens of lawyers, dissidents and activists being criminally detained and arrested or simply going missing in one of the toughest crackdowns for years. It appears to have been sparked by anonymous calls on websites overseas for "jasmine revolution" protests inspired by the Middle East uprisings.

Ai was stopped at Beijing airport on 3 April and has been incommunicado ever since. Officials have said he is under investigation for economic crimes but police have still not informed his family that he is detained.

Lu Qing was asked to take documents with her, but ironically, she couldn't- she'd had them confiscated by police.
Her husband, Ai Weiwei, has long been a prominent figure in the art world.  He designed the Olympic stadium in Beijing, along with Herzog and De Meuron, and his his sunflower seeds exhibition is currently displayed at Tate Modern, in London.

But it seems his fame has not played at his advantage in denouncing the regime's lack of freedom, and he's now under investigation for alleged economic crimes. The general sentiment is that the allegations are a cover for detaining him for his political campaigning. “China in many ways is just like the Middle Ages,” Ai Weiwei told officials at Beijing airport, after surveillance cameras were installed at his gate entrance, his phone was tapped and his mircroblog censored.

Footage of what has now become the last U.S. television interview with world-renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei before his widely-criticized disappearance now seems eerily prophetic.

On Thursday MEPs will hold an emergency debate on the arrest of Ai Weiwei, the brilliant Chinese artist and political activist, as well as other victims of Beijing's new crackdown. His is the highest-profile case since Liu Xiabao was sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion – and won the 2010 Nobel peace prize for his leading role in the Charter 08 movement.

With the world's attention on the uprisings in the Middle East, Chinese authorities are reacting to the widespread rumblings since mid-February, when a "jasmine revolution" was called across China, and a few brave souls dared to express their protest.

Ai, who is best known for creating the sunflower seed installation in London's Tate Modern and his work on Beijing's Bird's Nest Olympic stadium, is the highest-profile victim in the heavy-handed suppression of political dissidents by Chinese officials.

The Beijing regime has detained or arrested dozens of human rights activists from lawyers to bloggers in what appears to be a pre-emptive strike against what they "might" do. The process resembles the pre-Olympic Games crackdown in 2008.

The police are again regularly putting activists and their families under house arrest, depriving them of their rights without any hint of due process. In the past few days four veteran activists – Liu Xianbin, Ran Yunfei, Ding Mao and Chen Wei – were all formally charged with inciting subversion of state power. Instead of the routine three-year sentences, 10 years is now normal.