Photograph----Harry-PearcePentagram-2015_

Scattered lights

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Until the middle of December this year, the main courtyard of London’s Royal Academy has an intriguing set of artwork on display. Tall light-brown trees, stripped of leaves and awkwardly symmetrical, welcome visitors to the first major presentation of Ai Weiwei’s work on European soil. All the major pieces in the exhibit have been selected by the artist himself, spanning a period of 21 years since his return to China in 1994. 

An old empty armchair invites visitors to sit and contemplate the surrounds, and as one pays closer attention, it is apparent that there is nothing organic or strictly natural about these ‘trees’: distinct blocks of wood joined together with harsh long bolts. It is an old Chinese technique of assembling wooden structures, still mastered by Ai Weiwei’s chief-carpenter at the artist’s studio in Beijing. The set depicts something about ‘One China’, and how it has remained unified over time.

Deemed too political by some, or just interestingly controversial by others, Ai’s reputation as an activist at times seems to have overshadowed his works from a foreign audience perspective, believes Adrian Locke, curator along with Tim Marlow for this exhibition.  

“People know him as an individual, but they don’t really know his art. There is a kind of curiosity to find out who the artist is behind this, what all the excitement and talk is about,” says Locke.

An honorary member of the Academy, Ai Weiwei was able to travel to the opening of the exhibition shortly after receiving his passport back from the Chinese authorities in July. 

One of the main pieces exhibited is ‘Straight’: 90 tons of rebar arranged in a 12-meter long rectangle, where different lengths create shapes that could be the sine waves on a Richter scale. 

There is void at times. And the peaceful sea-like structure turns our attention to the walls where the names of 5,196 children who perished in the Wenchuan earthquake of 2008 are listed. The artist undertook what was dubbed a ‘citizen’s investigation’ for four years to discover all of their names, after authorities failed to provide details.  The children were victims not just of the natural disaster itself but also of cheap construction standards of the schools.   All the reinforced steel bars, still bent and twisted, were collected from schools and houses from the quake site and bought by Ai Weiwei, to be straightened. 

“Every time I talk about that room I still feel quite emotional. There is a tremendous power to that work,” confesses Locke. 

Most visitors will feel just as moved. Ai’s intent is to lead them through his own experience as an activist and artist in China: The Crab House and He Xie were inspired by the demolition of his former planned studio in Shanghai, brought down even before completion by order of licensing authorities; S.A.C.R.E.D. depicts various models of his prison cell number 1035, where guards closely watched his routines for three months, after his detention in April 2011.

“It’s not a choice. It’s my life. I have to sacrifice. I won’t have any regrets,” Ai explains in a video to visitors about the recurrence of political subjects in his artwork. 

“We can not hide this, nor would we want to,” says the curator. “But what we really wanted to do was to give people a chance to look at him visually, and then to understand how he reaches that process of creating something and the connections behind it.”

To find the origin of Ai’s work, one must travel back nearly four decades. The year 1976 was the Year of the Dragon and China was just starting to emerge from the dark years of the Cultural Revolution, setting the canvas for the first contemporary arts movement in the country, Xingxing – or ‘Stars’. 

The deaths of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai gave way to an initial loosening of the grip on power by Deng Xiaoping, which allowed the nation’s capital a three-year ‘Springtime’ where a Democracy Wall was opened for all kinds of slogans to be posted. 

A dozen artists began saying “in politics we want democracy, in arts we want freedom”. Brought up in former cadres’ families, allowed access to foreign cultural products and influences, and strongly persecuted during the years of the Cultural Revolution, the Stars members were a heterogeneous group including poets and painters, mostly brought together by the publishing of the magazine, Today, for which a few did illustrations. Poet Bei Dao and artist Huang Rui were editors. 

They were also meeting in Beijing’s parks to paint, experimenting with more modern Western techniques: Impressionism was the first to get their attention.

“People could shout out whatever they wanted, much more than they’d want to shout out. What happened was that literature, music, photography, poetry, art, all the contemporary movements started. And democracy of course,” says Qu Lei Lei, an artist based in London since 1995. This November he will also be exhibiting works at the British Museum, together with Ma Dasheng, another member of the Stars.

In 1979, artists like Huang Rui, Ma Desheng, Yan Li, Wang Keping, Yang Yiping, Qu Lei Lei, Mao Lizi, Bo Yun, Zhong Ahcheng, Shao Fei, Li Shuang and Ai Weiwei would set the foundations of China’s contemporary art scene with a call for individuality and self-expression, as they organized the first Stars’ collective exhibition at the gates of the National Art Gallery in Beijing because they were not allowed inside.  With international media watching, a street protest ensued after the police removed the works.  

The following year, the artists were allowed to exhibit at the gallery just one time, but the brief ‘Springtime’ was to come to an end after a crackdown.

Li Shuang, the only female artist in the group, was detained because of her involvement with a French diplomat, on the grounds that mixed marriages were forbidden at the time in China. She spent two years in prison, including three months in solitary confinement, before French diplomatic efforts for her release succeeded. “I paid the price for everyone. That’s it,” she recalls.

“At the time, China was like a glass so full of sadness that our art was the final drop to make it spill. Our group triggered the ultimate explosion of this collective sentiment. It made a lot of noise,” says Li, now an expatriate in Paris since her release in the 1980’s. Next March, she will be exhibiting her latest series of works, Le Baiseur at Art Paris.

Ai Weiwei’s works still seem to be rooted in that initial moment of Stars, now a scattered constellation of artists with an individual impact felt around the world. 

“The feeling was always there: feeling responsible for this nation, this people,” says Qu Lei Lei. “Today, if you look at Ai Weiwei’s work, he’s still fighting for that. That is why the Stars were so important,” he adds.

 

Ai Weiwei

September 19 – December 13

Royal Academy of Arts

London

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