"Ai Weiwei takes a keen interest in altering and subverting the original function and significance of representative and symbolic elements in Chinese culture. His reconstructed Ming and Qing Dynasty furniture has no more practical function but still maintains its succinct and elegant proportions. His Han Dynasty urns covered in white industrial lacquer or painted with Coca-Cola logo probably can't be valued as antique any more but they clearly demonstrate the fundamental nature of daily utilities. Lining up of feet and hands of Buddhist sculptures in a grid showcases the variety of postures and styles and lends these fragments another form of unity. His body of work is diverse and versatile, all containing contradictions, absurdity and substantial discrepancy in time and space. His application of "readymade" is a tribute to Duchamp but the value and significance of his chosen medium (antique) lends his subversive gesture exceptional weight. Is he an antique connoisseur, a minimalist architect, a conceptualist or a post-modernist artist? Accidentally or not, in Nangao where Ai Weiwei resides in Beijing, Guang Han Tang - a thriving antique furniture business, and China Art Archives and Warehouse - a space for avant-garde art, are just a few steps apart from each other."
"Misleading Trails" in Multiple Perspectives
Xie Xiaoze
http://www.archivesandwarehouse.com/Gallery/CAAW/new_gallery/30_misleading_trails/all.htm
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