2 Yet Unknowns reaching out... Bill Clinton, meet Ai Weiwei, 1989

AGOAiWeiWei_20130907_053
Originally uploaded by DawnOne

Bill Clinton, 1989. 2 Yet Unknowns reaching out... 32 black-and-white documentary NY Photos, AGO Ai WeiWei Exhibit "According To What?" © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com 2013 Sept.9, 2013, Toronto Canada
Exhibition of photography taken by Ai Weiwei during the years 1981 to 1993, when he lived in the United States. He studied briefly at Parsons School of Design and at the Art Students League of New York, eventually choosing Alphabet City, a volatile and fascinating Lower East Side neighborhood of NYC. There he documented the art and literary scene which, as the son of a well known Chinese dissident, the poet Ai Qing, he soon gained entree. One neighbour in particular, the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, had previously met his father in Beijing. This friendship led Ai Weiwei to encounter others of significant stature in the arts community, such as renowned photographer/filmmaker Robert Frank, also included in this selection of photos. He also documented intimately his friends in the expat Chinese art community, but those images do not predominate here. It comes as no surprise that he expressed interest in the artistic practice of Andy Warhol's factory, as reflected in the MOMA self-portrait, as Ai's embrace of the "cult of personality" to advance one's message and career is a distinctly American one.
As someone I presume was on a visitor's visa, what's more impressive is that he engaged in closely documenting political events which took place in NYC in the late 1980s. The courage he exhibits here is suggestive of what will follow once he returns to China. The Tompkins Square riots, during which squatters, artists, punks and anarchists tackled issues of homelessness and poverty with Direct Action techniques, were violently subdued by local police and it is at these events where Ai obtained his most successful photographs.
The exhibit ends on a smiling Clinton waving at the camera as he departs in a car in 1989, both subject and photographer relatively unknown at the time but as history will reveal, destined for greatness and notoriety. It is important to remember that this is just a small selection of the thousands of admitted "snapshots" Ai Weiwei took in NY, which were reduced to 227 for a previous project, Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983 – 1993, Exhibit and Book.
For an excellent analysis of his photography by writer Gail Pellett-
gailpellettproductions.com/ai-weiwei-new-york-1983-1993/

Linda Dawn Hammond
AGOAiWeiWei_20130907_053

AGO Ai WeiWei Exhibit "According To What?"

AGOAiWeiWei_20130907_101
Originally uploaded by DawnOne

He Xie (2010), AGO Ai WeiWei Exhibit "According To What?" © Linda Dawn Hammond / IndyFoto.com 2013 Sept.9, 2013, Toronto Canada, an installation of more than 3,000 porcelain river crabs. The term “he xie” refers to the word “harmonious,” which is part of the Chinese Communist Party’s slogan and is now internet slang for official online censorship. In the background are the names of over 5000 school children who perished in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, dead beneath the collapsed rubble of their schools due to substandard building construction which one can trace to corruption on a governmental level. The government in turn tried to mask the enormity of their failure to protect the children by silencing reporting of the event. As a result of China's one child policy, many families had lost their only son or daughter, increasing the personal tragedy. Ai WeiWei and other Chinese activists worked to bring notice to this by compiling lists of the names of children who had died and creating artworks around the subject. Not forgotten or dismissed in this exhibit, they are remembered in several ways- the backpack snake at the entrance, which recalls the hundreds of backpacks and other possessions which lay strewn in the rubble of the schools following the carnage. The audio portion which recites the list of 5000 names inscribed upon the wall. An elegant sculpture, Straight, which gains emotional significance through context- shattered twisted spines, the rebar which failed to support the buildings and led to so many deaths, now straightened and arranged into aesthetically pleasing and orderly piles. Beautiful and sad.
As a result of these attempts to inform the public and the world of this tragic event, he and many others were beaten, persecuted and jailed. Ai Weiwei's blog was shut down, though he still retains a voice on Twitter.
In November 2010, Ai was placed under house arrest by Chinese police, in a failed attempt to prevent a party he was hosting, to mark the impending demolition of his newly built Shanghai studio which officials had suddenly declared 'illegal." In spite of Ai's enforced absence and thanks to social media, hundreds converged on the studio and the party took place without him. Participants feasted upon "river crabs"- symbolic as they represent "harmony" but are also slang for "censorship". This action was documented in first time American director Alison Klayman's film, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, who managed to evade the wrath of Chinese authorities and obtain footage no local could have.
Ai was released the following day, but later arrested again on a dubious charges of tax fraud and now confined to his Beijing house in 2011, where he remains, unable to leave China. The party in Toronto, which is this exhibit at the AGO, had to proceed without him, but I hope he is able to access these and other images, in order to view the success with which his message still resonates. According to the video interview he gave during AGO's First Thursday event, he appears however to be a man subdued. He was threatened upon release with the prospect of jail for an undetermined time. As a man with a young child and an aging mother, this is a sobering thought. He rather wistfully said that there would be no more "parties'... but that he had not lost, as he was still the same within...
Linda Dawn Hammond
AGOAiWeiWei_20130907_101