Conscientious Anarchy

It was only a few months ago that we were all queuing for Banky’s Dismaland in Weston to experience the anarchic spectacle as the artist unabashedly stuck the proverbial finger up at consumerist Capitalism and modern British political system. Now we find ourselves queuing again for Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy, London for the largest exhibition of the Chinese artist’s work in the UK to date. Whilst both are subversively political, challenge established ideas, question the cultural/financial values of art and are hugely successful at drawing the crowds there are still many things that separate them as unite them. I wonder though how many people will have seen both?

 

Weiwei’s art is anarchism that has found a conscience. If it’s possible for the two to work harmoniously together then Weiwei achieves it, in what are often very minimalist, conceptual and highly labour-intensive, ambitious sculptures/installations which subversively challenge human rights  in previously untold or censored narratives of events. It is highly emotive work and charged with the ongoing ethical battle ‘freedom of speech’ that has even seen the artist who was commissioned with designing Bejing’s Olympic Stadium and conversely also imprisoned by the state. Renowned Blogger and art activist, Ai Weiwei’s exhibition at the Royal Academy creates an interesting tension between the popularity of activism in 21^st Century Britain and place within which political artworks sit within the institute of the art world.

Two open copies of Phaidon’s iconic ‘The Art Book’ (the A to Z of ‘significant’ artists from medieval times to the present day) lay open side by side. The English/American version features Ai Weiwei and the Chinese version does not. In omitting the existence of the artist in one but not the other probably does Weiwei’s notoriety more good than harm but also somewhat chillingly summarises what is the principle themes in Weiwei’s practice of control, censorship and the documentation of history.
 

'Straight' (2008-12) Steel reinforcing bars, 1200 x 600cm. 

If the meaning in Banksy’s work is a one-liner then Weiwei’s is a poem. Ideas and meaning unfold gradually and are open to many interpretations. In the installation, titled ‘Straight’, 200 tonnes of steel reinforcing bars lay in undulating rows atop one another creating a wave on the floor of the central exhibition space. It first reads as a work of minimalist sculpture. Whilst it is massively ambitious in scale it’s simplistic in design; made up of one essential material lain in a systematic, regimented form. The whole thing takes on new significance when you discover the detail and making behind the work (and I stress that the only real way to do this is with the exhibition’s accompanying free audio guide) that the bars are from buildings involved in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008 which have each individually been straightened by hand from their post quake twisted state. The waves in which the bars have been arranged now become shifting tectonic plates or waves off a Richter scale; each of the bars becomes symbolic of the scale of destruction and somehow quantitative to the number of lives lost. Even more worrisome upon the final discovery that the steel bars were taken from twenty schools whose construction was covered up by the Chinese government who after a forced investigation instigated by Ai they had to admit that corruption allowed builders to ignore safety codes when erecting the schools. Over 90,000 people were dead or missing as a result of the quake and it wasn’t until further investigation using social media and Ai’s blog that the names of the 5192 children who perished were published and in the exhibition accompanies the work ‘Straight’ surrounding it on the gallery walls.

 

[detail] 'Straight'

Ai Weiwei’s work is known for its use of traditional craftsmanship skills, influenced from Ai’s upbringing when the artist initially earned money fixing/making furniture. In the pieces in this exhibition such as ‘Straight’ the work utilises the power of many and communities who collected and reshaped the steel bars as well as assisting in the collection of data and names of those missing/deceased to be revealed. It is an empowering piece, the fact the bars have been re-straightened is in itself an act of defiance and resilience, an attempt to correct that which is broken. The architectural properties of the bars as well references not only Weiwei’s own relationship with buildings as an artist that has worked as an architect but alludes to the idea of architecture as a way of reinforcing control on people, upholding certain regimes or influencing behaviour. It is a theme which reoccurs in many other works in the exhibition, ‘Souvenir from Shanghai’ being an arrangement of brick, stone and rubble from the site of the artist’s studio which was built with permission from the Chinese authorities and subsequently ordered to be knocked down within weeks of its completion after relationships with the authorities and Weiwei had soured after the artist’s arrest and detainment in 2008. The authorities continue to survey and monitor Weiwei’s activities since.

 

For me, Weiwei is an important artist because he is one of a few contemporary artists working today that raises the importance and position of art in modern life and the power of artists within society. This is a concept which has been maintained by Weiwei in his blog and twitter feeds which the artist sees as an integral part of his artistic practice into the modern wider world. The role of the artist becomes a duty or obligation to the wider community or audience (but does not necessarily mean it has to lose its playfulness or questioning nature). It reminds me of other artists who similarly work within their communities/political systems such as, Gabriel Orozco, Mona Hatoum and Francis Alys.
 

'Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn' (1995) Triptych of black and white prints, 199.9 x 180cm 

Throughout history you had your Duchamps, Warhols and Rauschenbergs who somewhat arrogantly or playfully (depending on how you look at it) called anything that they signed, said, exhibited or mass produced; ‘art’ . They re-valued and reassigned what art could be and what the role of the artist was. Weiwei has stated being influenced by these artists in his own earlier works and in this exhibition presenting the piece, ‘Hanging Man’ made from a bent clothes hanger as a direct reference to Duchamp and Dada. Given a similar treatment are ‘Table and Pillar’, one of a series of works that explores combining two ready-mades from Qing Dynasty temples to create new forms and challenge the ‘value’ of history vs. the art object; ‘Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn’ and Weiwei’s coloured/Coca-Cola vases, again in which the values of cultural and financial work are questioned as well as the challenging of history, systems which it is documented/recorded and whom in society has the power to assign value to an object. The latter is an ideology is echoed in the beginning example of Weiwei’s omission from the Chinese Phaidon ‘Art Book’ to which Weiwei states a defiant truth, ‘The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.’ Alternatively Weiwei’s intervention of historical artefacts is seen to some as a deliberate act of vandalism, but perhaps in a similar way to Banksy, the role of the vandal and the artist are subverted when both artists’ interventions often add a commercial and cultural value to an object? As well as questioning the nature of what vandalism is it empowers the makers as being in control of creating value to objects rather than being dictated by authorities or system within which the work operates.

[detail] 'Forever Bicycles' (2009-14)

At times all of this becomes a little heavy and one almost feels better not knowing of the injustice, corruption and atrocities. Ignorance becomes bliss, but I still acknowledge that they are truths that we should and cannot ignore. “Art is not supposed to repeat what you already know. It is supposed to ask questions.”* The show ends on a slightly more light-hearted note with the recently commissioned piece specifically adapted for the exhibition, ‘Forever Bicycles’, a chandelier  made up of Chinese bikes strewn with crystals  hanging from the domed ceiling. The idea of a journey, wheels in motion and circular routes in some ways mirrors the artist’s new found freedom of having his passport reendowed since it was taken from him by the government in2011. It ironically also raises the ethics of being an artist as whilst Weiwei is an ambassador for freedom of speech it could be viewed that in his chosen occupation he has to lose his own freedom in his commitment/celebrity-like status to his cause, “an artist is never free...an artist is bound by his gift, his vocation”**

 

Weiwei has more than once stated his belief that it is not possible to separate the art from politics in China and goes back to my own belief from earlier that he is an anarchist with a conscience, an artist who sees his role as not merely a matter of presenting the world but fundamentally trying to change it. 

 

Ai Weiwei is on at the Royal Academy until December 13th 2015

https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiwei

 

 

All text and images Copyright of Natalie Parsley©

*Kutlug Ataman from ’33 Artists In 3 Acts’ Sarah Thornton

** Andrei Tarkovsky ‘Sculpting in Time’

Enduring the Misery So You Don't Have To

  To the fabled few Dismaland is an experience worst endured alone and in the rain.

 That’s exactly what I did, except along with several other hundred people who had the same idea earlier this week one particularly miserable rain filled morning as I queued along the sea front at the Somerset seaside town, Weston-Super-Mare.  Dubbed the UK’s ‘most disappointing new visitor attraction’ the exhibition situated in Weston’s dilapidated Tropicana Lido aims to bemuse and turn the whole idea of an ‘amusement park’ on its head, subvert it, fill it with irony and humour mixed with the controversy, political undertones and social commentary that we’ve come to expect from the Bristol originated street artist’s work.  The site features several of Banksy’s works ever pushing the ‘artist’ as we now seem to call him into territory increasingly outside that of just graffiti or street art and into the broader realms of almost Damien Hirst ambitions of being a media savvy entrepreneur. The concept of the park itself and work within it has been curated (we’re told) by Banksy himself and excitingly features the work of over fifty other artists including Jenny Holzer and David Shrigley.

Like cogs in the infernal consumer, social media machine multitudes of us bought into the hype, the speculation and almost feverishness as we either queued for hours in the rain or clambered in vein in an attempt to purchase tickets online. An unprecedented demand for what is essentially, ‘an art exhibition in wolves clothing’ of the likes Charles Saatchi and Nick Serota (Tate Director) can only dream of! Love Banksy or hate him, there is so much to be said for the phenomenon in sheer popularity alone that this attraction has caused. It is possibly one of the most intelligent marketing events in recent years, that has managed to convince thousands of people to stand for hours queuing in the rain, endure a truly incompetent website, miserable staff and terrible customer service based on the promise of having a ‘bad’ or ‘dismal’ time. Our shared frustration and misery only adding to the attractiveness, hype and irony of the whole experience!  Those lacking a sense of humour need not attend!

Is it all a gimmick, a one-liner a joke at society’s expense or is there something more to offer in the thinking, artists and work within Dismaland? If art becomes ‘popular’ it is sometimes dismissed as being a bit naff, vacuous or shallow in appealing to the masses? Think Pop Art in the early 60s America. But what’s wrong with being popular? We now look upon Pop Art as something more crucial and important to art history than perhaps the reception it was met with by critics at the time. I think the mistake that people make is when they associate popular with being ‘good’ or having ‘quality’ to it which is often subjective and very often not the case. The grim reaper on a bumper car, two trucks colliding in on each other, a killer whale jumping from a toilet into a paddling pool and a beach ball suspended above knives may not be ‘good’ art, ‘tasteful’ or even particularly well-made but is popular because it is often deliberately easily accessible.

Is a joke that no one gets funny? Not really unless it’s ironic, you want it to be told in a language, a wit that everyone can understand. Comic book art, advertising in the 60s is a visual language meant to be understood by the masses and so political cartoons, one-liners and non-conformist acts of rebellion are designed to communicate their message across clearly be it in the form of slogans, word-play, use of celebrity, parody or satire. The danger of this so called popularity or ‘wisdom of the crowds’ is exactly that, cliché; and the danger of a lot of work presented at Dismaland is that in all its clever cynicism it soon grows tiresome, repetitive and above all is quite quickly forgotten. It is art that should only be enjoyed as part of a balanced art diet! Even the overtly more practically used political banners by Ed Hall lose some of their power in being statically hung in a tent-based installation; they are only really animated in the context of the people who carry them.

A flat photo-realistic painting of a dystopian landscape, of which there are many in Dismaland doesn’t have the same meaning in its production and intent behind it as a George Shaw painting in my opinion. Nor does the asylum seekers raft boat ‘fairground’ style game have the same lasting resonance that pricks much deeper at your conscience, like an Ai Weiwei  work does, in which the production is as symbolic (if not more so) as the finished work itself. That’s sort of where the art in Dismaland disappoints, that it feels confused as to who its real audience are, if it is disillusioned teenagers, working class, middle class, celebrities, idiots, journalists or all of the above! Guerrilla Island toward the back of the park does offer some earnestness, some radical politics in the form of a museum of cruel design, objects designed to hurt (example, pigeon spikes for the homeless), the Comrades Advice Bureau and a mini library. If you take time to process these amidst the distractions of the fun fair I salute you.  

Dismaland does well at addressing a bigger political message about Art, its purpose and value, particularly in how Councils need to reassess how they value the arts/culture in their towns and cities to create more provision for them providing easier access to disused spaces; as Dismaland demonstrates how much prosperity culture can provide to a seaside resort in the rainy summer holiday months. I enjoyed being part of the spectacle, the experience; Bill Barminski’s fake security gate made of cardboard was one good example at using performance within an art experience and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t fun exploring the remnants of Tropicana, riding inside the Astronaut’s Caravan as it spun around you and attempting to knock over anvils with ping-pong balls. We shouldn’t be afraid to not take art seriously some times and if you are walking around expecting it all to be art you're severely missing the point; its as much of a fair ground as it is an art exhibition as it is a bar and music venue. Make of each what you will! It pokes fun at our familiarity of how we expect to view art in museums and galleries and maybe an amusement park could be a fun place to see art?!

 Its downfall for me however is given its huge opportunity and press coverage it could had a rare chance to be so much more than a cheap laugh or a ‘place to be seen’. I think it plays to the audience as being  a consuming, disillusioned society that isn’t so much looking for answers or solutions as it is for someone to blame. Jaded by political and capitalist systems in a world increasingly under threat of environmental self-oblivion; there isn’t much optimism or, if Dismaland was anything to go by, much in the way of what we can actually do about it. Its most dismal trait is its portrayal of a troubling acceptance or apathy that the world may irreconcilably be doomed so why bother. It had the opportunity to be much more of an activator to promote and encourage positive change but does so very shallowly or more often choosing to ignore it all together. I am sceptical whether this Disneyland parody set in a very British stereotypical seaside town could provide the political awakening that has been somewhat lacking but much needed in those of my generation and younger? And that really is quite dismal.

But hey, on the plus side makes for some great photo opportunities though!

If you insist on fulfilling the dismalness for yourself then I suggest you arrive at Weston early and queue! For those of you further afield you may want to try booking a ticket online:

http://www.dismaland.co.uk

Good Luck!

All text & Images Copyright of Natalie Parsley©