Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957).Straight, 200812.

Steel reinforcing bars,

dimensions variable. Ai Weiwei
InStraight, Ai uses rebar recovered from the rubble of collapsed
schoolhouses following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The artist had
every piece of mangled rebar straightened through a laborious process.
The large divide in the piece is meant to suggest both a fissure in the
ground and a gulf in values. The massive work serves as a reminder of
the repercussions of the earthquake and expresses the artists concern
over
societys ability to start afresh almost as if nothing had
http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/ai_weiwei/straight.php

Ai Weiweis TED Talk

Watch this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVnH8ou3Kd4

Then this about Straight .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2_t8VeJBE0

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957).Straight, 200812. Steel reinforcing bars, dimensions

variable. Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957).Straight, 200812. Steel reinforcing bars, dimensions

variable. Ai Weiwei

2008 Sichuan Earthquake2008 Wenchuan Earthquake

Chengdu
Date

May12,2008

Duration

>2 minutes[1]

Magnitude

8.0Ms[2]/7.9Mw[3]

Depth

19 kilometres (12mi)

Epicenter

31.021N 103.367E(Yingxiu,
Wenchuan County,
Ngawa Prefecture,Sichuan)

Areas affected

China

Total damage

Building and infrastructure

damage, landslide, formation of
landslide dams

Max. intensity

XIMM/CSIS[4][5]

Landslides

Yes

Aftershocks

149 to 284 major

over 42,719 total[6]

Casualties

69,195 dead[7](
21st deadliest earthquake of all ti
me
)
18,392 missing[7][8]
374,643 injured
(as of September 22, 2008 18:1

Sichuan schools corruption scandal

Over 7,000 schoolrooms collapsed in the course of the earthquake, mostly in rural areas,
[5]
reportedly leading to the death of nearly 5,000 students (though some parents believe
the real figure is twice that officially cited [6]) and the injury of over 15,000 students.[6]The
total death toll of the quake was around 70,000 people, with some 375,000 injuries. A
month after the quake, nearly 20,000 people remained missing, while five million were
rendered homeless.[7]
The disproportionate number of school collapses led to open discussions that they were
not built to adequate standards. The grieving parents and critical journalists pointed out
that "hundreds of schools collapsed instantly even newly constructed ones while
older buildings nearby were often unscathed." [6]This, in turn, has led to allegations of
corruption on the part ofEducation Departmentofficials and contractors who were said to
be complicit in constructing the school buildings dangerously below governmentmandated standards, while pocketing the remaining surplus. [6]On May 26, Wang Xuming,
a spokesman for the Education Ministry, stated that the ministry would complete a
reassessment of school buildings in quake zones and that those who had cut corners on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_schools_corruption_scandal
school construction would be severely punished. [8]Some parents protested what they
argued, one month after the event, amounts to government inaction

Tang Yulan, 40, weeps amid the ruins of Beichuan Middle School, a month after
losing her only daughter in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. About 4,700
schoolchildren died when more than 7,000 schools collapsed. Photo: Ricky
Chung
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1230807/shame-sichuans-tofu-schools

Earthquake Rescue Worker: Not A Single Bit Of Reinforcement Bar.

This weeks Southern Weekend tells the story of an enraged rescue worker at the site of a school collapse in the Sichuan earthquake disaster zone:

The rain pours down. Desperate family members crawl around, hoping, in the wreckage of the Juyuan Elementary School.
Members of the national search and rescue team start to search as soon as they arrive, but the building has collapsed into a
pile of broken rock. This elite, most well-equipped branch of the Chinese earthquake rescue team can only use that most
primitive of tools, their hands, to dig through the rubble. In the end, they only dig out two living students, but in the process
they pull out corpse after corpse.
One member of the rescue team explodes with anger: Its this tofu dregs construction! Inside the concrete, theres only wire,
not a single bit reinforcing bar.
The original building was constructed in 1994. Later, other buildings were put up on the same ground. When the earthquake
hit, the other buildings had no problems. Only the school collapsed. Two-hundred and seventy-eight students in seventeen
classes had their lives ripped from them. An additional 11 are still missing.

Photo: Ruins of the Central School of Hongbai, Sichuan

http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/05/earthquake-rescue-worker-not-a-bit-of-reinforcement-ba
r/

Ai Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957).Straight, 200812. Steel reinforcing bars,

dimensions variable. Ai Weiwei
InStraight, Ai uses rebar recovered from the rubble of collapsed
schoolhouses following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. The artist had
every piece of mangled rebar straightened through a laborious process.
The large divide in the piece is meant to suggest both a fissure in the
ground and a gulf in values. The massive work serves as a reminder of
the repercussions of the earthquake and expresses the artists concern
over societys ability to start afresh almost as if nothing had

Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds, 100 million hand made porcelain sunflower seeds, 2011

Watch this video about the making of Sunflower Seeds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PueYywpkJW8

Propaganda poster from the Cultural Revolution, Respectfully wish Moa Eternal Life, 1968

Propaganda poster from the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao is the Red Sun in
our Hearts

Ai WeiweisSunflower Seeds challenges our first impressions: what you see is not what you
see, and what you see is not what it means. The sculptural installationis made up of what
appear to be millions of sunflower seed husks, apparently identical but actually unique.
Although they look realistic, each seed is made out of porcelain. And far from being
industrially produced, readymade or found objects, they have been intricately hand-crafted
by hundreds of skilled artisans. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Halls vast industrial
space, the seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. The precious nature of the material,
the effort of production and the narrative and personal content make this work a powerful
commentary on the humancondition.
One of Chinas leadingconceptualartists, Ai is known for his social or performance-based
interventions as well as object-based artworks. Citing Marcel Duchamp, he refers to himself
as a readymade, merging his life and art in order to advocate both the freedoms and
responsibilities of individuals. From a very young age I started to sense that an individual
has to set an example in society, he has said. Your own acts and behaviour tell the world
who you are and at the same time what kind of society you think it should be.
Sunflower Seedsis the latest of a number of works that Ai has made using porcelain, one of
Chinas most prized exports. These have included replicas of vases in the style of various
dynasties, dresses, pillars, oil spills and watermelons. Like those previous works, the
sunflower seeds have all been produced in the city of Jingdezhen, which is famed for its
production of Imperial porcelain. Each ceramic seed was individually hand-sculpted and
hand-painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops. This combination of mass
production and traditional craftsmanship invites us to look more closely at the Made in
China phenomenon and the geopolitics of cultural and economic exchangetoday.
For Ai, sunflower seeds a common street snack shared by friends carry personal
associations with Mao Zedongs brutal Cultural Revolution (196676). While individuals were
stripped of personal freedom, propaganda images depicted Chairman Mao as the sun and the
mass of people as sunflowers turning towards him. Yet Ai remembers the sharing of
sunflower seeds as a gesture of human compassion, providing a space for pleasure,
friendship and kindness during a time of extreme poverty, repression anduncertainty.
Sunflower Seedsis a vast sculpture that can be gazed upon from the Turbine Hall bridge, or
viewed at close range. Each piece is a part of the whole, a poignant commentary on the

The seeds were also potent symbols of the Cultural Revolution. The characterization of
Mao as the sun, and the faithful as sunflowers turning to face him, was commonplace.
The association here with the hopes and savage disappointments of the time, both
spiritual and material, was unmistakable. Tates decision to stop visitors walking on the
work three days after it openeda result of health concerns about inhalation of
porcelain dustincreased this sense of sorrow and stillness. It reinforced allusions both
to ash, with its connotations of cremation, and to the fundamental tensions between the
individual and the collective in Chinese society, as the field of seeds, seemingly identical
yet each unique, laid dormant.
There was also a related personal association. Ais father, the poet Ai Qing, was
classified as an enemy of the revolution in 1957, resulting in a harsh exile in Xinjiang
Province, where sunflower seeds were one of the few dietary luxuries. Among the exiles
there, the sharing of seeds provided a moment of covert community solidarity. Ai has
early memories of his mother hulling seeds with her teeth, proficiently preserving the
kernelthe seeds still communicate such simple acts of pleasure in an increasingly
complex world.
Ais vital practice utilizes such elements in his own difficult life as pieces of grit to give
his work meaning to a wider audience. He is driven by a long-standing desire to
encourage both freedom of thought and the strength to act, whether in the face of
political repression and censorship or of such new threats to individual expression as
materialism and even mass production.Sunflower Seedsexpressed the responsibility he
feels to articulate and further this struggle, and of his belief in the transformative
possibilities of society
http://artasiapacific.com/Magazine/72/SunflowerSeedsAiWeiwei