At the weekend, Mr & Mrs That's Not My Age had an Ai Weiwei Day. The conceptual artist is incarcerated in China, unable to attend his two London exhibitions and banned from blogging, so I thought I'd do this for him. The Lisson Gallery is showing Ai's beautiful paint-splattered Han Dynasty vases.
There are posters of his quotes all down the street, mmm... Bejing take note. A couple of years ago, the Chinese authorities set up CCTV cameras outside Ai's studio and he responded with this marble work of art. Which made me smile. Watching me, watching you, ah ha!
This installation is called Moon Chest (look through the port holes in the wooden chests and you can see all the different moon-shaped silhouettes). Stunning.
Then it was over to Somerset House to see Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. The Portland stone is the perfect backdrop for the 54-year-old artist's 12 bronze sculptures:
The man who helped create the Bird's Nest Olympic stadium and filled Tate Modern with porcelain sunflower seeds is being detained without charge for 'economic crimes,' like publishing online pornography...
I don't get it. China is reaching out to the west. The west loves Ai Weiwei. Ai Weiwei gets banged up.
Free Ai Weiwei.
Ai Weiwei is on at the Lisson Gallery till 16 July 2011 and Somerset House till June 26 2011.
Sunflower seeds photo: The Telegraph