China feels it has the “right to redefine the global world order,” Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) said on Wednesday ahead of the opening in London of his first design-focused exhibition.
The show at the capital’s Design Museum features hundreds of thousands of objects collected by the Chinese artist since the 1990s — from Stone Age tools to Lego bricks — and draws on his love of artifacts and traditional craftsmanship.
The son of a poet revered by former communist leaders, 65-year-old Ai is perhaps China’s best-known modern artist and helped design the famous Bird’s Nest stadium for Beijing’s 2008 Olympics.
Photo: Reuters
However, he fell out of favor after criticizing the Chinese government and was imprisoned for 81 days in 2011. He eventually left for Germany four years later.
Among the artifacts in the new exhibition are thousands of fragments from Ai’s porcelain sculptures, which were destroyed when the bulldozers moved in to dismantle his studio in Beijing in 2018.
Launching the show, which opens today, Ai said he believed China was “not moving into a more civilized society, but [had] rather become quite brutal on anybody who has different ideas.”
“Tension between China and the West is very natural,” said the artist, who has lived in Europe since 2015.
“China feel they have their own power and right to redefine the global world order,” he said.
“They think China can become an important factor in changing the game rules, basically designed by the West world,” he said.
Even though Europe had been relatively peaceful for 70 years, there were many problems, including much less concern for “humanity” and threats to “freedom of speech,” he added.
Objects due to go on display include 1,600 Stone Age tools, 10,000 Song Dynasty cannon balls retrieved from a moat and donated Lego bricks which the artist began working with in 2014 to produce portraits of political prisoners.
The exhibition also features a number of large-scale works installed outside the gallery.
They include a piece entitled Colored House featuring the painted timber frame of a house that was once the home of a prosperous family during the early Qing Dynasty.
Exhibition curator Justin McGuirk said the things Ai had been collecting over the years represented “a body of evidence about different histories, different cultural moments in China’s history [that] maybe have been forgotten or not thought about enough.”
“Ai Weiwei always makes something out of destruction and plays on the idea of construction,” he added.
“Making Sense” runs until July 30.
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS