AI WEIWEI WITH THE WIND
WITH WIND -- AI WEIWEI
Ai Weiwei put the wind in prison.
Wind, a wild natural force that is symbolic of freedom, takes on the artistic body of a giant dragon-shaped kite in a piece entitled With Wind, created by the activist Chinese artist. It is one of seven site-specific installations which comprise his newest exhibition, "@ large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz."
Alcatraz, a former maximum-security prison on an island off the coast of California, is the perfect metaphorical place to contrast the experiences of a free and wild wind with a massive decrepit stony confine. While it closed operationally in 1963, it now draws 1.6 million visitors a year as a cultural, historical and wildlife site.
With Wind is a an installation which includes a multipart “dragon kite” with a bevy smaller kites in the shapes of birds and flowers.
Ai’s dragon kite is a riot of color that would be a beautiful joyful site if it were soaring in the wind above a wide open grassy space -- except here, it is a poignant beauty, suspended from the penitentiary’s ceiling, framed by its hard grey walls.
The exhibition explores themes of freedom and confinement, as Ai sits, under house arrest, passport detained, unable to feel the pleasures of the wind or anything else outside of his private jail. With Wind as metaphor, this large-scale sculpture, sound, and mixed-media work is all about human rights and freedom of expression.
The dragon's body, made from bamboo and rainbow-colored fabrics, snakes around columns covered in peeling, institutional green paint. It is interspersed with messages about freedom.
Because he is confined In China, Ai Weiwei had to guide the installation at Alcatraz remotely, from afar. Volunteers installed this work, keenly aware of the importance and impact of their mission, some wearing hat with the message reading “Ai can’t be here.”
To experience With Wind, you must travel by ferry to the island of Alcatraz, where signs will lead you to a building marked "Penitentiary Laundry." Just beyond the door, you will see the head of a dragon kite. And the journey through Ai Weiwei’s expression of freedom begins.
The $3.5 million project, mostly privately funded, was organized by the FOR-SITE Foundation along with the National Park Service, and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy.
The other components of "@ large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz" include Stay Tuned, a sound installation, in which the voices of people imprisoned for expressing their views such as the dissident Russian punk group Pussy Riot, as well as Trace, a 1.2 million-piece LEGO sculpture featuring portraits of 175 political prisoners and exiles, and Refraction, a five-ton sculpture resembling a bird wing, viewed only from the gun gallery above.
Check out this remarkable tribute to the beauty of freedom and the beauty of the wind in person if you can. It’s on exhibit through April, 2015.
Read more about Beautiful Wind, as they relate to Arts/Design, Nature/Science, Food/Drink,Place/Time, Mind/Body, and Soul/Impact including A Mighty Gentle Changing Beautiful Wind, The Wind as Artist Now, Blown Beauties for Beautiful Tables Now, Wind Art That Will Blow Your Mind Now, Ten Beautiful Places to Catch the Wind and 10 Beautiful Places to Catch the Wind.
Enter your own images and ideas about Beautiful Wind in this week’s creative Photo Competition. Open for entries now until 11:59 p.m. PT on 10.05.14. If you are reading this after that date, check out the current BN Creative Competition, and enter!
PHOTO CREDITS:
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Chmehl. Alcatraz.
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Nina Dietzel / FOR-SITE Foundation. Setting up With Wind.
- Photo: by Jan Sturmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.
- Photo: by Nina Dietzel / FOR-SITE Foundation. Setting up With Wind.
- Photo: by Nina Dietzel / FOR-SITE Foundation. Installing With Wind.
- Photo: by Jan Stürmann/FOR-SITE Foundation. Ai Weiwei: With Wind.