AI WEIWEI
ARTIST?
ARTIST!
ARTISTS ARE NOT PEDDLERS.
ARTISTS ARE TRUTH TELLERS.
INTEGRITY.
ARTISTS ARE NOT ENTERTAINERS.
ARTISTS SEEK +CREATE LENSES.
VISIONARIES.
ARTISTS ARE NOT PROPERTIES.
ARTISTS UPHOLD
HUMANITY + RAW FREEDOM.
ARTISTS ARE NOT LEASHED
COMMODITY PRODUCERS.
ARTISTS BREAK OPEN
SOCIAL + POLITICAL CONVENTIONS.
COURAGEOUS.
Ai Weiwei, Study of Perspective—Tiananmen Square,
part of a series (1995–2003) where he gave the finger to landmarks all over the world.
AI WEIWEI
NEVER SORRY
DOCUMENTARY
BY
ALISON KLAYMAN
A MUST, ABSOLUTELY MUST WITNESS, SEE DOCUMENTARY!
A DEF WAKE UP CALL
FOR
PRODUCT$$$BOUND
AMERICAN ARTISTS
Named by ArtReview as the most powerful artist in the world,
Ai Weiwei is China’s most celebrated contemporary artist,
and its most outspoken domestic critic.
In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months,
he quickly became China’s most famous missing person.
First-time director Alison Klayman gained unprecedented access to the charismatic artist,
as well as his family and others close to him,
while working as a journalist in Beijing.
In the years she filmed, government authorities shut down Ai’s blog,
beat him up, bulldozed his newly built studio,
and
held him in secret detention
–while Time magazine named him a runner-up for 2011′s Person of the Year.
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Sundance 2012,
her compelling documentary portrait is the inside story
of a passionate dissident for the digital age
who inspires global audiences
and
blurs the boundaries
of
art and politics.
TO ME,
AI WEIWEI
IS THE
DEFINITION
OF A
TRUE BLUE, TRUE NORTH
AUTHENTIC,
ALWAYS EVOLVING + MOVING FORWARD
ARTIST.
THE ARTIST IS NOT
A PEDDLER, A PLEASER, A PLACATER
A PRODUCT MAKER,
THE ARTIST IS
A TRUTH TELLER + A SHAMAN
+
AN ORACLE.
HUMILITY.
RESPONSIBILITY.
PERSEVERING,
GENIUS.
TWITTER USED AS AN EFFECTIVE VEHICLE
OF
ART + FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
SO AS TO
BREAK OPEN SILENCE
AND
PENETRATE THE FEAR/FORTRESS OF OPPRESSION :
Ai Weiwei Takes His Surveillance Worldwide
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CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 