28.9.11
24.7.11
Haus Der Kunst - on the occasion of ai weiwei
art, dissidence and resistance
panel discussion in english
27 jul 11 / wed 7 p.m.
western countries are demanding a transparent trial according to constitutional standards for the artist ai weiwei and other artists, authors and dissidents who are still imprisoned. the chinese foreign ministry, for its part insists on the sovereignty of china’s judicial system. can the gap between such contradictory positions be bridged? the panel at the haus der kunst will be discussing the case of ai weiwei – not as an isolated phenomenon, however, but rather as part of the geopolitical developments of the past few years. this, however, raises the question of the credibility of the western-oriented, international art system: on the one hand it demands universal freedom of opinion, and supports dissident artists through petitions, protests and calls for their release. on the other hand, has it not engaged in some complicity with autocratic systems? isn't tacit tolerance of the ruling, despotic elite in the country implicit in events like the sharjah biennial.
the Chinese artist ai weiwei, whose exhibition "so sorry" was shown by the haus der kunst in 2009/10, was arrested on 3 april 2011. chinese authorities alleged "economic crimes" as the reason for his arrest, but no evidence has been offered to date to support the charge. ever since his release on 22 june, the artist has been under house arrest, is prohibited from using the internet and from giving long interviews, and may not leave Beijing for a year.
with hou hanru (san francisco art institute), gao minglu (university of pittsburgh), shi ming (deutsche welle tv), flora sapio (Centre for Advanced Studies on Contemporary China, Turin) and ulrich wilmes (senior curator at the haus der kunst)
moderation: okwui enwezor (director of the haus der kunst as of 10/2011)
hou hanru studied art history in beijing. today he is a professor at the san francisco art institute. in 2007 he curated the 10th international Istanbul biennial and has published in flash art international and art monthly.
gao minglu studied art history in beijing and Cambridge. in 1998 he curated the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary Chinese art in the usa ("inside/out: new Chinese art”). he teaches history of art and architecture at the university of pittsburgh.
shi ming studied german and law in beijing, worked for many years as a journalist with radio china and has been with the chinese service of radio deutsche welle since 2002.
Flora Sapio received her PhD in Chinese Studies in 2004. She worked at the Centre for East and South East Asian Studies at Lund University, Sweden, and is now a research fellow at the Centre for Advanced Studies on Contemporary China, Turin, and a visiting professor at the Julius-Maximilian University in Würzburg, Germany. Her main research interests are, a.o., criminal justice, administrative detention and extra-judicial violence. She is one of the founding members of the European China Law Studies Association.
ulrich wilmes began his career in 1988 as head of exhibitions at the portikus in Frankfurt/main. after holding a variety of posts, notably at the lenbachhaus in Munich and the museum ludwig in cologne, he became senior curator at the haus der kunst in 2008.
okwui enwezor was the artistic director of numerous large-scale exhibitions, notably the documenta 11 in kassel (1998–2002). throughout his career, he has worked hard to shift the international art business away from its fixation on the euro-american context. at the present time, he is the artistic director of meeting points 6, a project for performance and the visual arts in eight cities (Beirut, amman, Damascus, cairo, tunis, tangiers, brussels and berlin). on october 1, 2011, he will become the new director of the haus der kunst.
On the occasion of Ai Weiwei: Art, dissidence and resistance
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Haus der Kunst | |||
 Ai Weiwei at Haus der Kunst, 2009. Photo by Joerg Koopmann. | | On the occasion of Ai Weiwei:
Art, dissidence and resistance Panel discussion in English Wednesday, 27 July 2011, 7 p.m. Haus der Kunst Prinzregentenstrasse 1 D-80538 Munich T +49 (0)89 21127-113 F +49 (0)89 21127-157 mail@hausderkunst.de Opening hours Mon–Sun 10 a.m.–8 p.m. Thu 10 a.m.–10 p.m. www.hausderkunst.de | |
| Share this announcement on: Facebook | Delicious | Twitter | |||
| With Flora Sapio, Julius-Maximilians-University Würzburg, Hou Hanru, San Francisco Art Institute, Gao Minglu, University of Pittsburgh, Shi Ming, Deutsche Welle TV, and Ulrich Wilmes, Chief curator Haus der Kunst Moderation: Okwui Enwezor, designated Director Haus der Kunst While China's ministry of foreign affairs complains, that foreign news reports lack respect for the sovereignty of the Chinese judiciary, western countries want trials to meet the requirements of constitutional standards. Is it possible to build a bridge that overcomes such different positions? The panel will discuss the Ai Weiwei case as part of a comprehensive geopolitical development. Is the western art system, with its demand for universal freedom of speech, its international protests, calls on politicians and petitions asking for the release of defiant artists, a credible system? Did it not enter into a complicity with autocratic political systems years ago? And do events, such as the Sharjah Biennale, signify our silent tolerance of despotic rulers? Ai Weiwei was released on June 22, 2011. But even so, the time might have come to rethink our political and diplomatic channels of communication. Flora Sapio is Assistant Professor at the University Würzburg. Her focus is on Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure Law, Human Rights, and Philosophy of Law. Hou Hanru studied art history in Beijing. He teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute, curated the 10th International Istanbul Biennial in 2007 and publishes articles in art magazines, including Flash Art International and Art Monthly. Gao Minglu studied art history in Beijing and Cambridge. In 1998 he curated the first comprehensive exhibition of contemporary art in North America ("Inside/Out: New Chinese Art"), and he is a professor for art and architectural history at the University of Pittsburgh. Shi Ming studied law, and German literature and language in Beijing. He initially worked as a journalist for Radio China International and since 2002 he has been on the China editorial staff at Deutsche Welle. Information and reservation (until 22 July) at T. +49 89 21127-113, events@hausderkunst.de Kindly supported by Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, and Museum Villa Stuck  | |||
16.7.11
Piccadilly Community Centre: Broken Britain invades Westminster
Compared to Elmgreen & Dragset, Büchel is literal-minded. But Piccadilly Community Centre is nevertheless impressively discombobulating. I have no idea how much it cost, and it clearly gives something to locals and other visitors who take it at face value. So what is this? Installation art? Community art? A tableau-vivant? Or a kind of immersive theatre in which we are the unwitting actors? Is it art – or life just tweaked a bit? All of the above. See you at the tea dance.Read further
And more...
And more...
12.7.11
london agenda
DINSDAG 12 JULI 2011
LONDON AGENDA
Pistoletto
Ai Weiwei
Stories of Change
Renhui Zhao at University of Arts London (metro Holborn)
Jake or Dinos Chapman in White Cube (opening friday) : http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/jdc-2011/
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, The Village and Elsewhere (may be interesting : thailand/translation/see 1001 fairytales) :
Tracey Emin
LONDON AGENDA
Pistoletto
Ai Weiwei
Stories of Change
Renhui Zhao at University of Arts London (metro Holborn)
Jake or Dinos Chapman in White Cube (opening friday) : http://www.whitecube.com/exhibitions/jdc-2011/
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, The Village and Elsewhere (may be interesting : thailand/translation/see 1001 fairytales) :
Tracey Emin
27.6.11
23.6.11
Anish Kapoor dedicates Leviathan sculpture to Ai Weiwei
Call goes out for museums and galleries to close for a day in sympathy for missing Chinese artist
guardian.co.uk,
Anish Kapoor's Leviathan at the Grand Palais in Paris, which he is dedicating to dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Anish Kapoor has dedicated his largest ever artwork – a truly enormous cathedral-like space made from inflated PVC – to the missing Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
The sculptor called for a worldwide day of action where museums and galleries close for one day in sympathy for the plight of his fellow artist. "Why not?" he asked.
Ai, whose sunflower seeds work in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall closed at the weekend, has been missing for about a month, in the hands of the Chinese authorities. He had not been heard from, nor charged with any offence.
"I've never met Ai Weiwei but he's a colleague, an artist," said Kapoor. "In a very simple way he is heroically recording human existence. All he's done is to record death by administration, death by corruption, inefficiency. I don't even think he's pointing that sharp a finger, frankly."It is more than a month that he's been completely disappeared. It is a true tragedy. Accuse him of something. Give him a lawyer. Let him defend himself … The state is not threatened by artists.
Anish Kapoor in front of his artwork Leviathan.
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Kapoor was speaking at the opening of the Monumenta exhibition in Paris's Grand Palais – a commission similar to the Turbine Hall in that it is filling a vast space, this time with the added trickiness of having glass windows all around.
"This is a terror of a space, probably much more difficult than the Turbine Hall," Kapoor said. "It's three times the size, huge horizontally and vertically and above all the light is a killer. It's almost brighter than it is outside."
What Kapoor has created he's called Leviathan, a 35-metre tall work – inflated, it's 13,500 square metres .
Visitors first of all walk inside it, like going into the belly of a whale or a cathedral with three chambers veering off it. Then outside you see what it actually is – four connected balloon-type structures. Something from a science fiction film, perhaps, that's taken refuge in this grand 19th-century glass building by the Seine.
Kapoor and his team have spent the past week inflating the work and there was no trial run. "We had one shot," he said. "Doing a project like this is about taking a risk."
The work will stay up until 23 June before it is gently deflated like a bouncy castle at the end of a fair. A very big castle with absolutely no bouncing allowed. The PVC alone weighs 18 tonnes and will be folded up into three parcels when it's let down – a 90 minute process.
Kapoor is known for his supersize works from the trumpet like Marsyas at Tate Modern in 2002 to Temenos, his enormous net-like sculpture in Middlesbrough. It is an impressive piece of design and engineering. "It is a perfect bit of tailoring," said Kapoor. "A millimetre out and there are wrinkles and wrinkles aren't allowed."
Visitors taking pictures inside Anish Kapoor's Leviathan.
Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
The work is also pan-European. The initial computer work was done in England and then the PVC was cut in Germany, assembled in Italy and set up by a Czech crew in Paris. Kapoor is the fourth artist to take on the Monumenta commission, following Anselm Kiefer, Richard Serra and Christian Boltanski.
Dedicating the work to Ai reflects mounting concern for the artist and continuing pressure on the Chinese authorities to explain why he is missing.
Tomorrow outdoor sculptures by Ai will be opened to the public at Somerset House in London, while on Friday a survey of his work will be held at the gallery which represents him in London, the Lisson – an exhibition that was planned with the artist last year. Greg Hilty, the director of the Lisson, said: "The response to what's happened to Ai Weiwei from the artistic and wider community has been incredible. It just keeps growing."
Hilty feared the situation may put up cultural walls between China and the west. "The idea of some worldwide cultural gesture is absolutely appropriate and the idea of closing is the right one because that's what this is about. If you imprison artists then you don't have them."
Anish Kapoor cancels exhibition at National Museum of China
Yesterday, Anish Kapoor cancelled plans to exhibit new sculptures at the National Museum of China in Beijing as a form of protest against the recent detainment of artist and activist Ai Weiwei. The exhibition was to be a part of the “UK Now” festival, what British Council chief executive Martin Davidson says aims to “build supportive links between people in the UK and China”.
Kapoor has previously protested Ai’s detention, most recently during the vernissage for his sculpture Leviathan, currently on display at the Grand Palais in Paris. The piece was created for “Monumenta 2011”, an annual event issued by the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. Kapoor dedicated Leviathan – a bulbous structure within which there are rooms flooded with red light – to Ai Weiwei as a gesture of solidarity and protest.
Kapoor had been very vocal in his support of Ai Weiwei. Back in May Kapoor called for the worldwide closure of museums and galleries for a day in support of Ai Weiwei, saying “In a very simple way he is recording human existence…he’s a colleague, and artist”.
http://www.aiweiweifilm.org/en/anish-kapoor-cancels-exhibition-national-museum-china/
Why Ai Weiwei Was Let Go
China Real Time Report
Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.
The release of Ai Weiwei after 11 weeks of detention is clearly good news for those urging his freedom, even if the condition of his release is to stay quiet. But the sudden reappearance of the artist raises as many questions as it answers, chief among them: Why?
The easy answer is that Ai was released because the Chinese government succumbed to international pressure and global outrage.
But the real explanation lies elsewhere, in Chinese domestic politics. Ai’s incarceration was a direct expression of the battle being waged in Beijing over who gets to rule the country in the coming years.
The narrative in much of the West is that Ai Weiwei was detained because he was a critic of the Chinese government. International human rights organizations insist that this was one of those cases where the international community successfully stood up to Beijing, and that Ai’s freedom was due in direct measure to the force of global opinion. They point to museums and exhibitors who signed letters and staged exhibitions, and the continued complaints by officials interacting with their Chinese counterparts and raising Ai’s case as an irritant in relations with Beijing.
But while Ai found some measure of freedom, a number of his associates remain in custody or under surveillance. Nor was there any amnesty announced for other detainees currently under investigation. Silence about those cases should be no surprise, for Beijing has shown itself to be unconcerned about polishing its international image. Where international pressure is concerned—be it for revaluation of the yuan or efforts to ease tensions in the South China Sea—Chinese officials far prefer looking tough to acting tentatively.
Ai might have a high profile in some parts, but he is a minor casualty on the larger battleground of Chinese politics. That war continues, with no clear victor in sight. Will it be the Right wing of the Communist Party, with their ideas of political reform and legal protections for citizens who wish to assist the government by being part of the loyal opposition? Will it be the Leftists, who favor a retreat to socialist values, even if takes mass movements and nostalgia to arrive there? Or will it be the current leadership in the Middle, which thinks that the society has to be supervised and–largely unafraid of what the world thinks–often happiest when foreigners complain?
Ai likely lost his freedom because he forgot that all the social media in China and the world could not protect him from being knocked about. And he probably got it back because the hardliners that fight a hundred battles every day to secure stability impressed upon him that very fact.
Russell Leigh Moses is a Beijing-based analyst and professor who writes on Chinese politics. He is writing a book on the changing role of power in the Chinese political system.
The release of Ai Weiwei after 11 weeks of detention is clearly good news for those urging his freedom, even if the condition of his release is to stay quiet. But the sudden reappearance of the artist raises as many questions as it answers, chief among them: Why?
The easy answer is that Ai was released because the Chinese government succumbed to international pressure and global outrage.
But the real explanation lies elsewhere, in Chinese domestic politics. Ai’s incarceration was a direct expression of the battle being waged in Beijing over who gets to rule the country in the coming years.
The narrative in much of the West is that Ai Weiwei was detained because he was a critic of the Chinese government. International human rights organizations insist that this was one of those cases where the international community successfully stood up to Beijing, and that Ai’s freedom was due in direct measure to the force of global opinion. They point to museums and exhibitors who signed letters and staged exhibitions, and the continued complaints by officials interacting with their Chinese counterparts and raising Ai’s case as an irritant in relations with Beijing.
But while Ai found some measure of freedom, a number of his associates remain in custody or under surveillance. Nor was there any amnesty announced for other detainees currently under investigation. Silence about those cases should be no surprise, for Beijing has shown itself to be unconcerned about polishing its international image. Where international pressure is concerned—be it for revaluation of the yuan or efforts to ease tensions in the South China Sea—Chinese officials far prefer looking tough to acting tentatively.
Ai might have a high profile in some parts, but he is a minor casualty on the larger battleground of Chinese politics. That war continues, with no clear victor in sight. Will it be the Right wing of the Communist Party, with their ideas of political reform and legal protections for citizens who wish to assist the government by being part of the loyal opposition? Will it be the Leftists, who favor a retreat to socialist values, even if takes mass movements and nostalgia to arrive there? Or will it be the current leadership in the Middle, which thinks that the society has to be supervised and–largely unafraid of what the world thinks–often happiest when foreigners complain?
Ai likely lost his freedom because he forgot that all the social media in China and the world could not protect him from being knocked about. And he probably got it back because the hardliners that fight a hundred battles every day to secure stability impressed upon him that very fact.
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