Haus Der Kunst - on the occasion of ai weiwei

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

	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
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	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

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, Tuesday 10 May 2011 19.32 BST

 
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.

• Ai Weiwei,
• Communist Party,
• Dissidents,
• Expert Contributor,
• Russell Leigh Moses

Beijing Releases Detained Artist

Ai Weiwei 'Confessed,' Will Pay Back Taxes, Official News Agency Says; a Yearlong Ban on Tweets, Speaking to Media

By JEREMY PAGE

Chinese authorities have released on bail Ai Weiwei and imposed a media ban on the artist. The U.S. Federal Reserve downgraded its assessment of the U.S. economy, which could impact the flow of capital in Asia. WSJ's Jake Lee and Peter Stein discuss.

BEIJING—Ai Weiwei, China's most famous contemporary artist, says Chinese authorities released him on bail on the condition that he stop speaking to the media, including through Twitter, for at least a year.
China's state-run Xinhua news agency said Mr. Ai was released Wednesday night because he "confessed" his alleged crimes, agreed to pay back taxes he was accused of evading, and was suffering from a "chronic disease."
Mr. Ai said his health was fine and thanked reporters for their support as he returned to his studio late Wednesday with his mother and his wife, according to witnesses. He added that he wasn't able to say more under the conditions of his bail.
"I can't say much. I can say I'm out. I'm on bail. But I can't say anything more under the conditions of my release," he told The Wall Street Journal by telephone.
Asked how long the media ban was in place, Mr. Ai said: "One year, at least."

View Full Image

Reuters

Ai Weiwei waves from his Beijing studio after his release. Family members said China never officially informed them of his detention.

He also confirmed that the ban applied to social media such as Twitter, on which he has a following of more than 88,000. Mr. Ai used to send dozens of tweets daily, many of them criticizing the Chinese government, until his detention in April.
Mr. Ai's unexpected release appeared to be designed to curtail widespread international criticism, but left many questions unanswered about his 11 weeks in extrajudicial detention and his future as an artist and activist.
His release came two days before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is due to begin a trip to Europe that includes Britain and Germany, two countries whose governments and artistic communities had been particularly outspoken in calling for Mr. Ai's immediate release.

Read More

• China Real Time: Why Ai Was Let Go
• Opinion: The House Prisons of Beijing

The move was greeted with cautious optimism.
A spokesman for German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she welcomed the release, but he said that it is only a first step and that the accusations against Mr. Ai have to be resolved in a transparent fashion by the judicial system.
Mark Toner, a U.S. State Department deputy spokesman, said, "It's always a good thing when an individual who is only in prison for exercising [his] internationally recognized human rights is released."
"But there's obviously more individuals who are being held who we want to see emerge," Mr. Toner added.
The media ban on Mr. Ai suggests that China's increasingly powerful security apparatus is determined to silence prominent critics of the Communist Party, especially online, to ensure stability in the run-up to its 90th anniversary on July 1, and to a once-a-decade leadership change next year.

Outspoken Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei released by government authorities after nearly three months of detainment. Video and image courtesy of Reuters.

Mr. Ai, who helped to design the iconic Bird's Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, but who later emerged as one of the government's most vocal critics, was detained on April 3 as he tried to board a flight to Hong Kong at Beijing's international airport.
He was the highest-profile of several dozen dissidents—including many of China's leading human-rights lawyers—who have been extrajudicially detained since appeals for a "Jasmine revolution" in China began circulating online in mid-February.
Mr. Ai, 54 years old, had been thought for a long time to be immune from such treatment because his late father, Ai Qing, was one of Communist China's most famous poets, whose works have often been quoted by Chinese leaders, including Premier Wen.
Mr. Ai's family members say Chinese authorities never officially informed them that he had been detained and never detailed the charges against him, in what many legal experts describe as a deliberate violation of judicial procedure designed to intimidate other government critics.
Lu Qing, his wife, was allowed a 15-minute meeting with her husband at an undisclosed location near Beijing last month. After the meeting, she said he appeared to be well-cared-for and wasn't being held in an official prison.
State media and some Chinese officials have repeatedly denied that Mr. Ai's case is political. They say he was being investigated for economic crimes that included evading taxes through a company that handled his work, and for illegally destroying documents.
Xinhua said on Wednesday that Mr. Ai "has been released on bail because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from." It didn't elaborate on the illness.
Relatives say Mr. Ai suffers from high blood pressure and diabetes.
"The decision comes also in consideration of the fact that Ai has repeatedly said he is willing to pay the taxes evaded," the report quoted Beijing police as saying.
It also quoted the police as saying that Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd., a company Xinhua said Mr. Ai controlled, was found to have evaded a "huge amount of taxes" and to have intentionally destroyed accounting documents.
Mr. Ai's relatives have denied those charges, and have said that the company in question is registered in the name of his wife.
Several of Mr. Ai's work colleagues were also detained when he was taken into custody and over the next few days. There was no immediate word on their fate.
Write to Jeremy Page at jeremy.page@wsj.com

Dissident Chinese Artist Is Released

 

NY Times

David Gray/Reuters

The artist Ai Weiwei speaking to reporters at his Beijing studio early Thursday. “In legal terms, I'm — how do you say? — on bail. So I cannot give any interviews,” he said. “But I'm fine.”

By EDWARD WONG 

Published: June 22, 2011 

Ai Weiwei guest professor at Berlin University of the Arts april 2011

Artist Ai Weiwei awarded guest professorship at Berlin University of the Arts, to be funded by Einstein Foundation Berlin

At a joint press conference on Wednesday, 20. April 2011, Prof. Dr. E. Jürgen Zöllner, president of the board at the Einstein Foundation Berlin, and UdK Berlin president Prof. Martin Rennert announced that Chinese artist Ai Weiwei had been appointed professor at Berlin University of the Arts. The guest professorship will be financed through the Einstein Foundation Berlin. It will be attached to the Graduate School for Arts and Sciences of the UdK Berlin, which is also financially supported by the Einstein Foundation Berlin.

Also present on the podium was artist Olafur Eliasson, professor at the UdK Berlin since 2008 and director of the university’s Institut für Raumexperimente. Eliasson emphasised that the intention was to integrate Ai Weiwei into the work of his institute as well. The procedure to appoint Ai Weiwei to the UdK Berlin has been in progress since December 2010. In April he was imprisoned by the Chinese government and his studio was destroyed. The Berlin institutions thus sought to expedite his appointment to the university, intensifying their negotiations. It is not yet clear when the artist will take up his professorship.

Release Ai Weiwei

An Artist Takes Role of China’s Conscience

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who disappeared into police custody in Beijing after he was detained on Sunday while trying to board a flight for Hong Kong, is a fully 21st-century figure, global-minded, media-savvy, widely networked. He is also the embodiment of a cultural type, largely unfamiliar to the West, that dates far back into China’s ancient past.

Ai Weiwei's Path From Cultural Prankster to Enemy of the State

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/37421/ai-weiweis-path-from-cultural-prankster-to-enemy-of-the-state/

It takes a government as lawless and paranoid as China's to give an artist the kind of popular relevance that Ai Weiwei now has. The detention of Ai — we still don't know his whereabouts, though authorities have issued a one-sentence statement that they are investigating him for "economic crimes" — has become an international cause célèbre, splashed across news channels and sparking high-profile diplomatic reactions.

Of course, there is something exotic about this story that feeds the furor. In our neck of the woods, artists — even very political artists — are tolerated as either Cassandras or clowns. Art in general functions as a zone of imagined freedom, whose outsize, libertine character is in exact inverse proportion to any consequences that it might have for the artist.

mr. BIG

Mr. Big

http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/mr_big/

Exactly how influential is Ai Weiwei? If numbers are any indication, at the time of writing this in April, 2008, Ai’s blog, which alongside a journal of his everyday activities contains occasional interviews and curatorial commentaries, had registered well over four million hits since he started it in November 2005. This figure is rivalled only by the number of visitors to Xu Jinglei’s blog, one of the most popular young movie stars and directors in China. Reading Ai’s blog has become something of a ritual for many who read Mandarin, particularly those working in the art world, as a means of keeping track of the national and international artists, curators, critics, journalists, celebrities and others who make it a must to visit Ai’s studio while they’re in town, and to keep up to date with his latest art works, exhibitions, friends and enviable international travels.

Earlier this week, while foreign governments called on China to release Ai, China's most famous artist, from detention or state his whereabouts, Ai’s family took a more immediate strategy. They wrote out a flyer. Hand scribbled, and signed by Ai’s mother and his older sister, the flyer was photographed and circulated online, though, each time it popped up on the Web, it was censored moments later. His mother confirmed for me the authenticity. (I wrote a Profile of Ai for The New Yorker last year.) This was not a piece of art; it was an earnest appeal. Across the top, they wrote “Missing Person”:

Ai Weiwei, male, 53 years old. On April 3, 2011 around 8:30, at Beijing Capital International Airport, before boarding a flight to Hong Kong, he was taken away by two men. More than fifty hours later, present whereabouts remains unknown. Please, anyone who knows the whereabouts of the above, contact the family

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/evanosnos/2011/04/ai-weiwei-and-the-law.html#ixzz1JsB74xfp

I FOR AN AI

Ai Weiwei

I FOR AN AI

by Bozidar Brazda

How else to describe an artist who has consistently served Chinese authorities a serious dose of their own mind-fuck tactics and lived to blog the tale? Weiwei's relentless baiting of the Chinese government (he once held a party while they razed his new studio) suggests that his recent arrest might be more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than would be tactful to suggest. And yet there is an undeniably Ghandhi-esque masochism about the whole exchange that's difficult to ignore.

Ai Weiwei is suspected of avoiding taxes, and the sums are quite large

facebook

public letter

April 15, 2011

Ai Weiwei Studio’s staff, family and volunteers published an open letter urging the authorities to follow the law and appropriate procedures in handling Ai Weiwei’s case, and to investigate into the disappearance of the associates.

free ai weiwei

Free Ai Weiwei is an information hub on news and events related to the detention of
Chinese artist/architect/social commentator, Ai Weiwei. Follow us @freeaiww and on Facebook.

1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei

1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei, April 17, 2011, 1 pm, organized by Creative Time, outside the Consulate-General of the People's Republic of China to the United Nations, 42nd Street and the West Side Highway

Sunday, April 17, 2011

"1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei," New York, April 17, 2011, 1 pm

Most of the few hundred people who gathered to protest the arrest of Ai Weiwei were sitting in chairs outside of China's UN consulate by 1 pm this afternoon, the official start of the action. They were there for 1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei, an event suggested by curator Steven Holmes as a tribute of sorts to Ai's installation Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs, which featured just that number of wooden chairs and was staged in 2007 at Documenta 12.