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  • NARRATOR: In 1995, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei

  • photographed himself as he picked up a 2000-year-old urn

  • and let it smash to the ground.

  • If we're appalled when cultural heritage is destroyed

  • in the name of god and state, how can we

  • possibly defend Ai's action?

  • How can we buy a ticket to see photos of it in a museum?

  • How can those photos sell for over a million dollars?

  • How can this man be one of the most renowned artists

  • of our time?

  • This is the case for Ai Weiwei.

  • Ai Weiwei was born in Beijing in 1957

  • to writer Gao Ying and famed poet Ai Qing,

  • whom communist leader Mao Zedong initially embraced,

  • but soon after denounced during the Anti-Rightist

  • Movement of 1958.

  • The family was exiled to labor camps in remote provinces

  • until the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976.

  • They then returned to Beijing.

  • And Ai-- and by that, I mean AI Weiwei-- enrolled

  • in Beijing Film Academy in 1978 and co-founded

  • a group of avant garde artists called The Stars.

  • In 1981, he decamped to the US and settled

  • in New York, where he scraped by, hung out

  • with his neighbor, renowned beat poet Allen Ginsberg,

  • and took lots and lots of pictures.

  • He also immersed himself in art, studying Marcel Duchamp

  • and considering the idea of readymade as a way to make art.

  • When he returned to China in 1993,

  • he met with a country undergoing tremendous change.

  • Many were still reeling from the 1989 Tienanmen Square crackdown

  • on pro-democracy demonstrators.

  • And Deng Xiaoping's focus on economic development

  • had tripped off the massive transformation

  • of China's cities.

  • Ai's urn dropping occurred not long after his return.

  • But his irreverence had surfaced before that.

  • He turned a critical eye toward all edifices of power

  • at home, as well as abroad.

  • Well-versed in antiques, he knew the value of historic objects

  • and the symbolic power of manipulating them.

  • Chinese antiquities became Ai's raw material

  • for a new kind of readymade, dynamically synthesizing

  • the clash between reverence for the past

  • and the irrepressible drive toward the future,

  • for modernization is a mixed bag.

  • With change, there is loss.

  • History is erased.

  • How can we condemn an artist for destroying cultural heritage

  • when his government has raised neighborhoods and entire cities

  • to build new roads, buildings, giant dams,

  • and Olympic stadiums?

  • Ai's work allows us to reckon with the destruction

  • that construction requires.

  • But to be clear, he is more of a creator than destroyer.

  • He has repurposed wood from demolished temples

  • and transformed it into intricate and dramatic

  • installations.

  • He takes a basic unit-- say, an antique stool-- and multiplies

  • it, compounds it, to see where it takes us.

  • History that would otherwise be relegated to dusty shops

  • or landfills is made strikingly, unforgettably visible.

  • And he has found new uses for old techniques,

  • hiring craftspeople adept in ancient joinery traditions.

  • He has enlisted the most skilled porcelain makers in the world

  • to demonstrate their mastery, commissioning exquisitely made

  • copies and objects like watermelons, crabs,

  • and millions and millions of sunflower seeds.

  • He has embraced the handmade within an economy whose

  • incredible growth has been fueled by automation and mass

  • production.

  • He has synthesized traditionally Chinese materials

  • to think about the part in relationship

  • to the whole, the self in relationship to the collective.

  • "If a nation cannot face its past," he has said,

  • "it has no future."

  • And Ai is equally concerned with the present.

  • In 2008, when the Sichuan earthquake struck,

  • he visited the region in the immediate aftermath

  • and assembled volunteers to gather the names of the dead,

  • addressing attempts by authorities to cover up

  • the disproportionate number of schoolchildren who died because

  • of poorly built schools.

  • He amassed tons of twisted rebar from the wreckage,

  • painstakingly straightened it, and assembled it

  • into spare elegiac memorials.

  • He arranged 9,000 backpacks on the facade of the Haus der

  • Kunst to Munich to represent the young lives lost,

  • spelling out a quote from a victim's mother.

  • "She lived happily for seven years in this world."

  • Ai has been a ceaseless, unflagging voice

  • for the voiceless.

  • In 2009, he was beaten and detained in his hotel room

  • in Chengdu when attempting to testify

  • in the trial of human rights activist Tan Zuoren.

  • He visits with refugees fleeing the war in Syria,

  • organized a London walk of compassion in their honor,

  • covered his sculptures with thermal blankets,

  • and wrapped the columns of Berlin's concert hall

  • with salvaged refugee life vests.

  • An early adherent of social media,

  • he's an adamant supporter of free speech.

  • He reports on his life in minute detail.

  • He did so up until his 2011 arrest and confinement

  • for 81 days on unfounded tax evasion charges,

  • as well as after.

  • Authorities have demolished his Shanghai studio,

  • threatened to demolish his Beijing studio,

  • and forced him to pay a tax evasion

  • fine of 15 million yuan.

  • He has been continually surveilled and followed,

  • prevented from leaving his country, and through it all,

  • has refused censorship within China, as well as abroad.

  • Not everything he does is genius.

  • But he remains committed to reaching an ever wider public.

  • His work does not sit firmly in the realm of art,

  • but radiates out.

  • He's often called an iconoclast.

  • And an urn crusher would certainly

  • seem to adhere to the definition.

  • But there's another way to see Ai Weiwei, as someone

  • who desperately wants the cherished beliefs

  • and institutions of China's past to be remembered

  • and resuscitated.

  • And in that sense, as radicals go,

  • he's brilliantly conservative.

  • His work is deeply rooted in history and tradition.

  • It is steeped in remembering, valuing, preserving.

  • He stands defiantly opposed to a culture

  • that wants to move on with little regard for the past.

  • He has resistance to forgetting, to silence.

  • His work asks us to consider what we value, why we value it,

  • and what we are accountable for destroying, preserving,

  • or transforming.

  • He asks fundamental questions about our human rights

  • and responsibilities.

  • Liberty," he says, 'is about our rights to question everything."

  • Out of a source of constant irritation,

  • the oyster develops a pearl.

  • Ai is that constant source of irritation.

  • And we are lucky not only to bear witness to it,

  • but to be called to action by it.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

NARRATOR: In 1995, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei

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アイ・ウェイウェイの場合|アートの課題|PBSデジタルスタジオ (The Case for Ai Weiwei | The Art Assignment | PBS Digital Studios)

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    Hui-shun Hung に公開 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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