Ai Weiwei's Perpectives at Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery
Ai Weiwei is a master at packing complicated narratives into the simplest gestures. His millions of hand-painted, porcelain sunflower seeds at the Tate in London employed thousands of regional artisans to produce a commentary on consumption and craft. His Haus der Kunst exhibition, So Sorry, was named for the sad history of crocodile tears spilt by institutions and industries over their transgressions. Now his Perspectives, at the Sackler Gallery in DC, is an ode to the destruction of history, the evanescence of shelter and the meaning of artifact, via a forest pavilion made of the remaining fragments of Qing Dynasty temples. It's a monument to politics, nature and human intervention, which in the eyes of this social commentator, are quite literally joined at the hip.
| Perspectives: Ai Weiwei - Behind the Scenes | |
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Culture Profile
Ai Weiwei Chinese artist, architectural designer
