Charisma counts. Never more so than in the world of conceptual art. Where ideas can be fleeting, and beyond an initial moment of recognition there is often little to sustain lasting interest, the artist's personality must also light up the work. But even then, what does it take to lift conceptual art to the greatest heights?
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| I see you |
Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist of the fierce glare and the soft avuncular features, has charisma to burn. But is this enough to send his reputation soaring into the stratosphere? Is this enough to make him - in the words of Radio 4's John Wilson "arguably the most famous living artist in the world, probably the most important." No, it is the target of Ai Weiwei's ire that does that. Throughout his life Ai Weiwei has been under surveillance. The Chinese State clearly regard him as dangerous. This was made all too clear, when in 2011, as part of a Communist party crackdown on political activists, police confiscated his passport and detained him for nearly three months without charge where he endured interrogation and psychological torture. To wander around the artist's retrospective at the Royal Academy is to learn about this imprisonment and the way in which the Chinese State toys with its most prominent artist. In one of the galleries we find S.A.C.R.E.D. (2011-2013), a series of rectangular spaces, each depicting a scene from Ai Weiwei's incarceration, his two prison guards ever-present watching him as he sleeps, sits, showers and defecates. A few years ago, I was lucky enough to catch Howard Brenton's incredibly powerful play The Arrest of Ai Weiwei. Viewing these dioramas, recreated from the no doubt searing memories of his imprisonment, brought the 'reality' of what went on in this cell jolting sinisterly back into my mind.
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| S.A.C.R.E.D. (2011-2013) |
Other installations capture further run-ins with the authorities. Souvenir from Shanghai (2012) is a large rectangle of concrete and brick rubble taken from the artist's destroyed studio-home which was demolished for supposedly being built without the right permits. That it was the authorities that had encouraged him to build the studio in the first place highlights the frightening absurdity of his situation. It also made me laugh, and with that I remembered a lesson in literary criticism that I was once taught, that those who live in totalitarian states tend to think that Kafka's novels and stories are first and foremost incredibly funny. When the absurd is the norm, what else can you do but laugh?
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Souvenir from Shanghai (2012)
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On first glance, much of what I saw left
me cold, or struck me as derivative. Take Surveillance Camera (2010),
a marble replica of one of the security camera's that monitors all of the
artist's moves. First impressions found
me recalling Marcel Duchamp's 'readymades'. But then, lifting my gaze up
towards the ceiling, eyes settling on one of the Royal Academy's own tiny
black security cameras, I began to think again of the context that envelopes
every one of Ai Weiwei's actions. And then, just to complicate matters, the context of my own comfortable existence.
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Surveillance Camera (2010)
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The
original of the marble casting camera is there to watch over people. The beady
eyed camera, gazing down from above, is there to watch over
money. One is protecting the interests of the State; the other is
protecting the interests of an owner. Without wishing to sound rabidly
pro-capitalist, the former is far more sinister. To take on the State with art
is far more dangerous - I suspect some of you might disagree here - than to
take on capitalism. Suddenly then, a narrative develops around these pieces.
Not just in their original back stories, but how, when
they are removed from China, their stories can metamorphose in the midst of
different cultures. When
visiting the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, Ai Weiwei found himself
outraged by the shoddy construction that had led to a huge loss of life. In particular, inadequately built schools that had led to the deaths of thousands of schoolchildren spurred him to act. Determined that these children should not be forgotten, brushed
anonymously under the carpet by the authorities, Ai Weiwei painstakingly
researched and compiled a list of over 5000 dead children - their names, sex, addresses,
dates of birth - and then inscribed this onto a wall of remembrance. In the Royal Academy exhibition this list of names occupies the walls of a gallery, in the centre of which lies Straight (2008-11), hundreds of steel rods taken from the rubble of the schools that had collapsed around them, and then straightened back to their original shapes. It's a startling juxtaposition, a rebellious act of remembering and a symbolic turning back of the clock. Again,
I found myself thinking about the priorities and concerns of the west, our uneasiness about data protection and
information, and contrasting it with a State that wills the disappearance of evidence that runs counter to its aims. The power of both of these pieces was revealed, the pettiness of our bugbears in the West magnified.
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Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizen's Investigation and Straight (2008-11)
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But still the conundrum nagged away at me. Shorn of context, the aesthetic of Ai Weiwei's art largely leaves me cold. Not all of it I should add. Some of his work is quite beautiful. I loved the shape and shimmer of Grapes (2010), the chandelier made out of bicycle parts that closed this exhibition (yet again, I thought of Duchamp), and one of his Chinese Zodiac casts - the pig - that surrounded the courtyard fountain at Somerset House, was deemed worthy enough (sic) to be my Facebook profile photograph for a year.
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| Grapes (2010) |
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| Circle of Animals/Zodiac Head (2011) 'Year of the Pig' |
The conceptual, though, requires more than a pleasing or quirky aesthetic. It needs the force of personality to get yourself noticed. Tracey Emin's surly belligerence, for instance, or Damien Hirst's chutzpah and capacity to win over rich collectors. And then on top of that a cause, a battle to fight. If that battle involves you pitting yourself against one of the most powerful regimes on earth, your art truly matters, certainly more so than a fish soaked in formaldehyde or an unmade bed. To see multiple examples of his work in one place is to get a sense of the size of the task he is faced with and the qualities needed to take that task on: resilience, patience, energy, stubbornness, and above all bravery. It would be easy for him to refuse to return to China and claim exile in one of the countries that make him all too welcome, to protest safely from afar. It would probably be much more lucrative too. But for me that would render his art impotent. The battle would be lost. His pieces would lose their power, the context would dissolve. And it's because of that context, that I think I agree with John Wilson, that Ai Weiwei is the most important artist on the planet, facing down an enemy that will continue to provoke him into even more powerful statements.
Postscript: after posting this blog entry on Twitter, it immediately (within two seconds, indicating that Ai Weiwei is a monitored phrase) garnered three hits in China. It's a small and sinister world.
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