Ai WeiWei

[Opsa]

Yesterday we visited a retrospective of the work of Chinese artist Ai WeiWei. His work is on view at the Hirschorn gallery in Washington DC, and is the first retropective of his work in this country.

This guy is amazing. He has true classical artistic talent, as seen in his Chinese zodiac heads which ringed the circular courtyard area, but also incredibly powerful conceptual work, such as his Ceiling Snake, which is made up of children's backpacks and is a cry of outrage over lives of children lost through an earthquake due to poor school construction. Another protest about that is an installation of rebar from the buildings mangled in that earthquake, which he arranged into a huge fault line.

One of the most bothersome pieces for me was a series of ancient pots that he slathered with hideous clown-colored paints. I wanted to avert my eyes from them, they bothered me so much. But instead I confronted them and discussed them for a long time with my sister and a passer-by, and this turned out to be the most satisfying intellectual exploration of the show. (I often find this sort of thing to happen, that what turns me off at first at a good art show can become something wonderful if picked to pieces with a friend.)

If this show comes anywhere near you, I highly recommend attending it. Looking at Ai WeiWei through his works is a moving experience. He is an artist, an activist, a hack, an asshole, a genius. The world is better for his being here to observe and comment on it.