AI WEIWEI AT ENGADIN ART TALKS (EAT) 2023
Ai Weiwei is collaborating on this yr’s Engadin Artwork Talks (EAT) from 27 to 29 January 2023 in Zuoz, Engadin. Below HOFFNUNG’s theme? HOFFNUNG! / The hope? HOPE!, the weekend occasion will discover the totally different meanings of hope via the lens of the artistic, humanitarian and scientific fields. He’s a part of this yr’s panel of worldwide audio system, Chinese language artist runs a various and prolific follow pushed by his social activism and political convictions. Encompassing sculptural installations, filmmaking, structure, images, ceramics, portray, writing and social media, his paintings strikes between modes of manufacturing and investigation.
As an activist, he criticized China’s lack of respect for human rights and freedom of expression, which in 2011 led to his arrest and subsequent 81-day detention on costs of tax evasion. Persevering with to talk out in regards to the social and political points he considers necessary, Ai Weiwei has develop into one of many main cultural figures of his era in China and past. “Artists are normally understood as individuals who undertake a sure sort of labor.” Ai Weiwei tells designboom forward of his discuss at Engadin Artwork Talks. “This understanding is unsuitable. In actual fact, artists are individuals who suppose independently, have unbiased perceptions and attempt to discover their very own methods of expression to alternate concepts, virtually instinctively. Learn our interview with the artist in full under.
Portrait of Ai Weiwei © Ai Weiwei Studio
INTERVIEW WITH THE ARTIST
designboom (DB): How does the 2023 Engadin Artwork Talks, HOPE theme work? HOPE!’, does it relate to your follow?
Ai Weiwei (AW): My work is especially to attempt to clarify my relationship to myself and the world. This rationalization is normally about who I’m and how much world I reside in. The query of who am I can solely be raised via reflection and expression. If there may be any hope in our lives, that hope encompasses despair, disappointment, all our aspirations, what we predict is true, how we hope to be understood, and the way we perceive different individuals’s worlds. Hope will stay hope if it’s not acknowledged and confirmed by actuality.
Ai Weiwei, “Gilded Cage” at Central Park, picture © designboom | extra right here
DB: What’s the position of an artist in our present sociopolitical panorama?
AW: Artists are normally understood as individuals who undertake a sure sort of labor. This understanding is unsuitable. In actual fact, artists are individuals who suppose independently, have unbiased perceptions and attempt to discover their very own methods of expression to alternate concepts, virtually instinctively. All of the efforts of artists replicate crucial actions of human beings; any individualistic excited about human nature will likely be a language of artists.
The Journey Act, 2016 | picture by Carol Quintanilha, extra right here
DB: You latterly signed a collection of clean A4 sheets of paper with invisible UV ink and gave them away at no cost in Hyde Park on Human Rights Day. Are you able to inform us extra about this initiative?
AW: Freedom of expression and free speech are crucial cornerstones of human rights and humanitarianism. Though the idea of human rights has been established for a very long time, not everybody can clearly specific their concrete concepts, attributes and modes of expression. For me, free speech is crucial a part of human rights.
On Human Rights Day, the act of signing my title on A4 sheets of paper with UV ink and handing them out to individuals who got here for one at Audio system’ Nook in Hyde Park may be very symbolic. It symbolizes two issues. First, free speech should have a novel language that belongs to every particular person and is expressed in accordance with their relationship to the world and the attributes of the sociopolitical surroundings on the planet in the present day. Second, free speech is a conduct that’s steadily shrinking and dropping its worth system. In our surroundings in the present day, which is mostly thought of democratic, free and open, free speech remains to be very uncommon conduct.
DB: Artwork for Tibet, the annual fundraiser that helps the wrestle for basic human rights and freedom of the Tibetan individuals, featured your work, “Hanger,” when you are additionally on the honorary committee. How did you become involved with Artwork for Tibet and do you might have extra plans to assist their mission sooner or later?
AW: People who find themselves persecuted by autocratic regimes, be they Tibetans, Uyghurs or different peoples from different nations and areas, should kind their very own voice and expression. It’s the solely technique to protect your frequent imaginative and prescient: human society can’t be dissociated from primary equity and justice. Once I can, I’ll proceed to assist teams and individuals who lack a platform for their very own voices and expression.
Ai Weiwei, Hanger, chrome steel, eight 5/eight x 18 7/eight x three in, 2012 | picture through Artwork for Tibet / Bidsquare
DB: In 2022 you had your first exhibition of glass sculptures in Venice, whereas the Albertina Trendy gallery in Vienna organized your greatest retrospective thus far. Do you get pleasure from doing exhibitions? Do you like theme-specific reveals or bigger ones the place you’ll be able to contact on a number of themes?
AW: Exhibition is just a approach of expression. It exists inside a cultural framework and in collaboration with establishments as a type of compromise. In actual fact, there are a lot of different methods of expression, for instance, the Web, social media, movie and writing. Every medium has its personal attributes and its personal path of creativity. The exhibition isn’t the one approach of expression for me.
Ai Weiwei, ‘Human Comedy’ on the Romanian Nationwide Museum, picture by Daniele Peruzzi | extra right here
DB: What are you engaged on in the mean time?
AW: I can sum it up as a retrospective abstract of my previous life in my previous age. Within the course of, I hope to be enlightened in my understanding of life and undergo the remainder of my life with extra knowledge.
DB: Are you optimistic in regards to the future?
AW: I do not suppose we have now the so-called future. Our future is simply an built-in idea that mixes in the present day and yesterday. I am not too optimistic about that.