Al Weiwei is an interesting artist. For those of you in London, you may have seen his work:
Image: Iwan Bann
Drawer, performance artist, author, architect, blogger, Weiwei is unafraid to experiment with different art forms to convey his messages. Quite matter of fact when interviewed, I’ve just finished his book “Al Weiwei Speaks”, a conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, curator of the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park.
The notion that struck me most about Weiwei is his complete dismissal of sentimentality and the consuming forward-thinkingness that characterises many of his decisions. I wrote in my blog for Cloud Dance Festival that I wanted to attempt to live my art, rather than just create it as something external from myself. My favourite artists use their avenues as extensions of themselves, the results that are created seem most fulfilling in a lifestyle capacity, especially when there are limitation imposed on most to be able to earn enough to survive on what they love to do.
Al Weiwei was the first artist to confront me with this attitude rather than just inspired by it, but fascinating to boot. Not only does he live his art, he takes these notions to the extreme – one I find almost uncomfortable. An example of his work is Coloured Vases (2009, 2010), where Weiwei painted Neolithic vases with bright industrial paint. At first glimpse, the history-lover in my was horrified – he’s just destroyed irreplaceable objects from out history! On second thought, there’s something quite potent about turning the history into the everyday – reinventing the function and even the aesthetic that the original artist would have conceived of. It’s this moving of past to present that Weiwei seems to do so seamlessly.
Fascinatingly, he also seems to be able to remain at the edge of new ways of expression. His ideas, once something has been done, or is “old” he looses interest. This attitude consolidates a practice that is constantly changing, often confronting, and made of no rhyme or reason.
The thought processes of this artist are far removed from my own, but I can’t help but be a little in awe of the present-ness he presents and constantly strives for. Perhaps it’s the extreme manifestation of what I meant by living my art, and while I have a long way to go before I embrace the everyday as he does, keeping his extreme in my mind seems a good way to keep the propulsion to move forward, create in tangents, and represent myself and my interests as an individual for, after all, I’m the only one who can present my uniqueness.
image: via artsjournal.com
Coloured Vases image: Ingrandisci immagine