One hundred million sunflower seeds individually crafted of porcelain and painted, poured on to the floor of a gallery and then walked on by the public provided the introduction to the work of Ai Weiwei for most people in Britain.
The compelling contradictions of the sculpture installed last year at Tate Modern and the invitation to crunch underfoot something as delicate as Chinese porcelain said more about China’s relationship with the rest of the world than a mountain of economic commentary and cultural analysis.
His recent arrest was most likely due to his critical blogging but his art is more powerful because it forces us to confront big and disturbing ideas by catching us unawares.
In Sunflower Seeds, it is through the medium of beauty and skilled craftsmanship. By dripping industrial paint over 6000-year-old vases, he shocks us into considering the ruthless desecration of centuries of Chinese culture in the pursuit of economic progress.
Like the most avant-garde of his western contemporaries he has pushed the boundaries of communication by harnessing the experience of others.
The Sichuan earthquake and the loss of thousands of young lives as schools collapsed prompted a particularly haunting installation. It consists of 9000 children’s schoolbags arranged to spell out in Chinese characters the words of a mother whose child had died: “She lived happily for seven years in this world”. It’s easy to sniff that this is not “art”.Without converting his vision into powerful images Ai Weiwei, who was released on bail this week, would have been just another blogger.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article