Is Zhao Zhao set to become the next Ai Weiwei?

Ai Weiwei's former assistant, artist Zhao Zhao, is coming under increasing pressure from the Chinese government

There's an interesting article in the current Spiegel which looks at the increasing attention paid to artist Zhao Zhao by the Chinese Government. Zhao, 30, is one of China's most promising young artists. His paintings, sculptures and videos address realities in his country, as well as documenting his life and those of his friends - one of whom is Ai Weiwei with whom he worked for seven years.

Zhao was supposed to have a major solo exhibition in New York this year, at a gallery owned by Christophe Mao, an art dealer active in both Beijing and New York. For Zhao the exhibition would have been an important step toward making a name for himself internationally. He packed up a large number of his works to be shipped by sea - but, according to the article, the shipment never left the port of Tianjin. Customs police confiscated it.

One of the items seized was a sculpture of Zhao's consisting of the shattered pieces of a concrete statue, a figure of an enormous police officer. The number on the officer's uniform is the date on which Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011. Zhao made the sculpture during Ai's imprisonment.

Zhao showed the work publicly for the first time in October 2011 in a Beijing gallery. Nobody batted an eyelid. However, a few days before a subsequent group show at the gallery polic turned up and and ordered the removal of the sculpture from the show reportedly claiming,"It wasn't art".

Zhao Zhao - stills from the video Happening

After his art shipment was confiscated, Zhao was told he'd have to pay a fine of 300,000 yuan ($48,000) even though there had been no crime. Zhao says that he was further informed that even after paying the fine, he would not get his work back - but would be allowed to view it one last time before it's destroyed. Zhao expects to be accused of tax fraud as well - tax evasion being a favourite with Chinese authorities - Ai Weiwei has been accused of the same.

Incidentally, one of Zhao's recent works is a photorealistic painting modeled after a photograph Zhao took for Ai Weiwei two years ago that shows the artist with four women, all of them naked. Ai is currently being investigated for pornography regarding the photo. Zhao turned the image into a large-format painting but when it was offered for sale at an art fair in Singapore, not one Chinese newspaper reported the fact.

The Spiegel story goes into far greater detail and with some interesting testimony from gallerists and dealers on exhibiting and selling art in China as well as from Zhao himself. Read it here.

Ai WeiweiSurvey by Karen Smith, Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Focus by Bernard Fibicher

Price T45.00

Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is truly an artist for the twenty-first century. In his sculptures he refashions artefacts and antiques into surprising, sometimes monumental constructions such as Template (2007): hundreds of wooden doors and windows taken from demolished Ming and Qing dynasty temples and arranged into a massive outdoor sculpture. As much as these materials look to the past, they also speak of the present, because never before (and probably never again) have they been available in such abundance. Like his benches carved from centuries-old temple beams, Template is a sly commentary on the speed with which China's building boom is obliterating its past. (When Template collapsed in a rainstorm two weeks after its unveiling at Documenta 12, the artist embraced its demise as a clever artistic twist.)

In China today, making art that's critical of current cultural and economic policies is not a particularly safe career move. But Ai's father, the poet Ai Qing, walked a similar path, absorbing European avant-garde styles while studying in 1930s Paris and later standing by them in the face of Communist opposition, a move that eventually led to his exile to the distant provincial town where his son Weiwei came to be born and raised. In the late 1970s Ai Weiwei moved to Beijing, banding together with other pro-democracy artists in a loose collective known as the Stars Group. In 1981, following government retaliation against one of their exhibitions, Ai moved to New York, where he attended art school and lived the life of the bohemian for twelve years, his East Village apartment serving as a base for countless visiting Chinese artists. When his father became ill in 1993 Ai returned to China, settling in Beijing and finally taking up his art career in earnest.

Weiwei's artistic forebears belong primarily to the Western modernist avant-garde (Duchamp and Beuys are particularly relevant). But Ai has equally and increasingly been influenced by modernist architecture and contemporary urban planning, citing the need for an ideal for living in a country where runaway economic development has shown little regard for the everyday life of the individual. In stark contrast to the glass-and-steel high-rises going up around Beijing, the art galleries, ateliers and homes Ai designs are boxy and modest, made from brick and other vernacular materials. Their resolution of Eastern and Western styles is a fitting parallel to his antique readymade sculptures.

At a time when the West is finally discovering Chinese contemporary art, Ai is one of the few to have transcended the label 'Chinese artist'. In part thanks to his gallery Urs Meile (Lucerne and Beijing), Ai has won the support of strong European collectors. His work is increasingly being shown at major venues around the world (Kunsthalle Bern, Kunsthaus Graz, Tate Liverpool) and included in major international exhibitions (the Moscow Biennial, the Guangzhou Triennale, Documenta). A complex, multi-faceted artist, Ai is poised to make a deep impact on contemporary art far beyond China's borders.

In the interview Hans Ulrich Obrist discusses Ai Weiwei’s life and motivations, his childhood in a rural province close to the Russian border, his underground political work, his move to New York in the 80s and consequent return to China in the 90s, and his break within the art world.

Karen Smith’s survey examines the evolution of Ai Weiwei’s work from the early paintings, drawings, and sculptures pieces through his most recent installations and architectural work, including the cotton-made sculpture World Map (Biennale of Sydney, 2006), the wooden doors and windows structure Template (Documenta 12, 2007) and his collaboration with the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Bernard Fibicher focuses on Working Progress (Fountain of Light) (2007), a site-specific sculpture for Tate Liverpool inspired by Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919) and that takes the form of a spectacular chandelier.

Specifications:

Format: Paperback
Size: 290 × 250 mm (11 3/8 × 9 7/8 in)
Pages: 160 pp
Illustrations: 200 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714848891

Karen Smith is a curator and writer based in Beijing.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London.

Bernard Fibicher is Director of the Musée Cantonal des Beaux Art in Lausanne.

On the Contemporary Artists Series

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