Saturday 17 August 2013

Chinese Aritst Ai Weiwei's Toronto Show Mixes Art, Politics By: Sherman Teo

Summary:
Ai Weiwei's list of accolades includes the Vaclav Havel prize for creative dissent, Man of the Year nods from Time magazine and GQ, and ArtReview magazine has twice included him on its list of the top 100 most powerful artists. The dissident Chinese artist is subject to a kind of house arrest in China, but that has not prevented his work from travelling abroad.Ai's politically charged multimedia artworks have raised the ire of China’s government, resulting in him being stripped of his passport. According to What? is one of the most significant exhibitions of contemporary art the AGO has hosted in years and the lengths to which the gallery went to install it are a testament to the artist’s stature. The AGO exhibit also includes a massive white wall lined with the names and birth dates of the 5,212 children killed in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province and a sculpture composed of over 38 tonnes of rebar collected from the disaster site. Teahouse, an installation that incorporates three miniature houses made of densely packed dried tea weighing more than one tonne each, required a structural engineer to install.

Opinion:
In my opinion, the world now has more and more talents and a large amount of people fit into the arts category. People who do all these art works and held exhibitions have all dedicated their life to the arts and will continue on. It is their passion for it and drive to allow them to continue putting up great pieces of work. Artists such as Ai Weiwei should be widely recognised rather than be underhouse arrest which restricts the person's actions and mental thoughts.

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