Ai Weiwei – ‘no activism, no life’

Ai Weiwei’s new exhibition, Making Sense, takes design as its focus, meditating on value, humanity, art and activism. In the lead up to the opening, Grant Gibson quizzes the artist on collecting, craftsmanship and what he really thinks about current-day activists

Ai Weiwei. Image: Ai Weiwei Studio 

On collecting 

Weiwei’s exhibition focuses on a series of recent works, entitled Fields, based around his extraordinary collecting habit. Items range from historical artefacts, such as 20,000 Neolithic tools and porcelain cannonballs dating back to the Song Dynasty, to more contemporary objects (think toy bricks). 

Weiwei describes his collecting as ‘a learning process’, adding that he’s concerned with ‘learning what happened in history, why it happened, what was produced at that time and under what kind of conditions; what were the customs and political changes of that time’.

So, how do his collections inform his work? ‘My collecting is part of my work and cannot be dissociated from other artworks of mine. Collecting is not only a phenomenon but rather an understanding of history and human behaviour.’

He chooses objects and materials based on the meaning they have to his own life and work. The array of spouts that were broken off teapots and thrown away 1,000 years ago during the Song Dynasty, or the porcelain balls he has amassed, are imbued with ‘cultural, historical and political information and are related to my long-term interests and research on issues that I have experienced. It’s not that I chose these materials – instead, we discovered one another.’

Credit: Still Life. Image: Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio/© Ai Weiwei

Weighing up losses

A section of the artist’s new show is entitled Construction/Destruction. It looks at the changing face of cities through mediums such as photography and film. It speaks to China’s relationship with its own traditions. 

As the artist points out: ‘China is not in danger of losing its history of craftsmanship, but is in the aftermath of it already. With the so-called revolutions and changes throughout this century, China has thoroughly destroyed previous craftsmanship. In addition to the way of production in craftsmanship, a kind of culture, ethics, order and language is also destroyed. When this is all destroyed, we as human beings have nothing left.’

China isn’t alone in this, of course, and Weiwei refuses to let other parts of the globe off the hook. ‘After the Industrial Revolution, people’s ability to work with hands decreased in the West, which led to the limitation of thinking and lack of search for meanings when facing challenges.’

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 1995. Image: Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio/© Ai Weiwei

An eye on the new 

With this interest in tradition and making, it’s intriguing to discover what Weiwei thinks of some of the art world’s recent innovations. You sense he’s not a fan of non-fungible tokens, for instance. ‘The art world is drifting away more and more from the meanings of art and culture,’ he explains. ‘What we should do is reconfirm the meanings of art and culture and redefine life according to the human condition. This kind of art is very rare nowadays. What we see today is just fashionable cultural and political tendency, like a kind of bubble.’

Caption: Illumination, 2019. Image: George Darrell/© Ai Weiwei Studio

A line on activism 

‘Activism is the definition of life. No activism, no life,’ says Weiwei.

That being the case, what are his thoughts on Just Stop Oil protestors using art to generate publicity by throwing soup at Van Gogh’s glass-encased Sunflowers?

His answer is coolly enigmatic.

‘The so-called activism has been replaced by surface-level ideologies, without being able to be involved in more essential and more in-depth issues. In the same way that we cannot pull our own ear and kick ourselves off balance, most of what we see as activism is lacking the understanding of world history and fails to identify our real plight today; it is nothing more than the appearance of it.’

Read

See Grant Gibson’s whole interview with Ai Weiwei in the latest issue of The Arts Society Magazine, out now and available exclusively to members and supporters of The Arts Society (to join, see theartssociety.org/member-benefits). 

See

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense 

7 April–30 July

The Design Museum, London

designmuseum.org