His father, Ai Qing, a renowned national poet who was exiled for his writings, wrote in 1946: “In as far as is possible the artist must be a revolutionary. In a nation where prominent dissidents have faced imprisonment before, as with the case of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner and civil liberties advocate Liu Xiaobo, Ai’s art is infused with an unapologetic political edge. “Through his art, Ai WeiWei fearlessly speaks his truth to power,” wrote art critic and political cultural theorist Maya Kovskaya. His detainment was widely understood to be retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the Chinese government’s penchant for censorship and track record of human rights violations. Just before that visit, the artist had spent 81 days incarcerated following his arrest on purported tax fraud charges. Haines traveled to Beijing in 2011 and visited Ai, whom she described as a friend, at his studio. The concept of bringing Ai’s art to Alcatraz began with Cheryl Haines, the exhibition curator and executive director of the San Francisco-based FOR-SITE Foundation. Nevertheless, his artwork - seven new site-specific sculpture, mixed-media and sound installations set within the crumbling remains of a federal penitentiary - is now on view at one of San Francisco’s most popular tourist destinations.
But a simultaneous meme is circulating among the artist’s band of social media followers: #AiCantBeHere.Īi, an internationally renowned figure and superstar in the art world, remains unable to travel abroad, his passport revoked by Chinese authorities without explanation. 27 opening, a blitz of images from the show hit social media networks, stamped with the hashtag #AiWeiWeiAlcatraz. 24, when a literal boatload of journalists was granted free rein to photograph and explore Ai WeiWei on Alcatraz” in advance of its highly anticipated Sept. It’s a delicate protest, performed “every morning until I regain the right to travel freely,” he explained via Twitter in November 2013, when he began the practice. The internationally renowned Chinese artist has a morning ritual of placing a bouquet of flowers into the basket of a bicycle locked outside his Beijing studio. Ai WeiWei on Instagram, and you’ll see many photographs of flowers.
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