Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads - Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei's animal heads unveiled in Toronto

Heads depict contemporary China's relationship with its history and how that's been eroded says curator

Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads was unveiled to applause and cheers outside Toronto City Hall yesterday. Organised by the Art Gallery of Ontario and Tokyo's Mori Art Museum, the large-scale artwork offers a reinterpretation of the 12 animals that represent the Chinese zodiac. It will be displayed in the reflecting pool at Nathan Phillips Square in advance of the Art Gallery of Ontario's upcoming show Ai Weiwei: According to What? opening on August 17.

The zodiac's animals were famously depicted in bronze as part of an elaborate fountain that Jesuit missionaries designed for the Summer Palace in Beijing. During the 1860 Opium War, British and French troops set the palace ablaze and plundered the bronze heads. Ai Weiwei's artistic interpretation of this event has previously been exhibited in New York, LA, London Sao Paulo and Taipei.

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"They are works that Ai Weiwei made in response to a series of works that were done in the late 1700s and taken away to Europe during the Opium Wars in the mid-19th century," explained AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum at the opening. "He, in a sense, has repatriated them by remaking them and having us think about the relationship of contemporary China to Chinese history, and how it has been eroded by its relations with other countries."

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The heads are installed in order according to the Chinese zodiac: Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Standing three metres high, each one ranges in weight from 680 to 950 kilograms, supported by a marble base weighing up to 450 kilos. Their combined weight of over 20,000 kilos necessitated consultation with a structural engineer for installation in the city's reflecting pool.

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.

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