艾未未: 艺术家？活动家？
While we’ll never keep up with AWW’s news appearances, here’s a few recent articles on his activities, his activism, and an interview with ARTiT from Japan following his first major museum show at the Mori Museum in Tokyo. The photo is him photographing in an elevator from a cell phone while detained by the police, the blog it was found on titled this image “Ai the God” or 《艾神》.
From ArtAsiaPacific, a magazine on “Contemporary Visual Culture” from Asia:
Ai Weiwei Continues Activism Against China; Government Responds
By Katherine Grube
On New Year’s Eve 2008, during a conversation with curator Hans Ulrich-Obrist at Vitamin Creative Space’s Beijing branch, artist-provocateur Ai Weiwei predicted: “2008 was the first year that China safeguarded legal rights; it’s when people started to wake up. But in 2009, I think China will confront greater problems.”
These words now seem unnervingly prescient, given that the first six months of 2009 in China were marked by politically sensitive anniversaries and often-violent protests including riots by members of the Uighur minority in Xinjiang province. From his Beijing studio, Ai continued his calls for a more responsible government even as China stepped up its response to the artist’s efforts. [read the rest of this article on the AAP site]
From ARTiT, the Japanese webjournal on contemporary art:
Ai Weiwei Interview: “I’m fighting for freedom of speech. I never settle for less. I don’t engage in negotiation.”
Read the interview in English here, on the ARTiT site
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