Tom Jeffreys attempts to look past the political context and provide an honest appraisal of the art of Ai Weiwei.
Anyone with even a passing interest in art or politics will know that contemporary artist Ai Weiwei was detained by the Chinese authorities on 3rd April while trying to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong. And he hasn't been seen or heard from since. Understandably the art world is up in arms – there's the Free Ai Weiwei campaign, as well as a petition started by the Solomon R Guggenheim Foundation, and signed by over 130,000 people, including the likes of Julia Peyton-Jones and Sir Nicholas Serota.
All of which makes impartial judgement on the two long-planned Ai Weiwei exhibitions that have opened in London this week – at Somerset House and Lisson Gallery – more than a little difficult. Especially as Lisson has just unveiled an enormous Free Ai Weiwei banner on the exterior of the gallery – incidentally featuring the words 'Lisson Gallery' in large letters across the top...
The other issue is that, personally, I don't find his work especially interesting. I think there's a fundamental problem with artists who are also activists; a problem which stems from the fact that effective political intervention relies on a simplicity of message in order to cut through political doublespeak and the white noise of obfuscation. Art, on the other hand, is generally at its most successful when it exploits and explores ambiguity – keeping itself open and resistant to the single, dogmatic interpretation. Rarely has there been a successful artist who is also an activist – because, essentially, the two are in direct contradiction to one another.
This is why Ai Weiwei's work at Somerset House, Lisson Gallery and indeed his recent sesame seed installation in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, are, for me, so dull and one-dimensional. Somerset House sees a boring series of twelve bronze animal heads, representing the signs of the traditional Chinese Zodiac, while Lisson Gallery features a range of more of less recent works. There's a series of Han Dynasty vases (5000-3000BC) painted with modern industrial paint; a 10-hour video of a Chinese motorway; a collection of marble doors; some wooden structures inspired by Leonardo da Vinci; a coffin-type object with benches made of dismantled Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) temples; and a marble CCTV camera that points out of the first floor window of Lisson's 52-54 Bell Street into a school playground just opposite.
The problem for me is that these works are only really of interest because of their relationship to China's difficult and often violent history; there's very little here of intrinsic interest, very little to sustain one's attention beyond the initial impact. Apart from the strangely enigmatic and really rather beautiful Moon Chest, these are works that succeed (if at all they do succeed) not as art, but as statements of intent and discontent.
Unsurprisingly perhaps, the one element that does create a powerful impact is not a work of art, but part of the campaign to free the artist. Outside Lisson Gallery's gallery space at 29 Bell Street is a series of posters featuring a range of Ai Weiwei slogans. “Words can be deleted,” reads one, “but the facts won't be deleted with them.” It's a powerful, provocative statement; and one that the current political context renders all the more poignant.
Ai Weiwei is at the Lisson Gallery until 16th July 2011.
Circle of Animals is at Somerset House until 26th June 2011.
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Ai Weiwei, Colored Vases 2006. Neolithic vases (5000-3000 BC) and industrial paint. 51 pieces, dimensions variable. Courtesy the artist
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