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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London |
Then reading TimeOut's interview with him and meeting Alexa who started talking about his new exhibition that she was keen to go to, I decided to go there even on my own! Not that I have not done that in the past!
As the Ai Weiwei exhibition just opened a day before I went there, I expected masses of people, though when I entered there were only 3 people lurking around...I think the downpour did not help either....but in couple of minutes as the rain stopped more and more people arrived and I started to feel I should not have thought there were not many people, as now I was not able to take pictures on their own without people walking into them...
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London |
This exhibition at Lisson Gallery showcased different installation with bikes, marble gasmasks, and armchairs, coathangers, handcuffs and toiletries.
Both according to TimeOut's interview and Lisson Gallery's print about the artists emphasised that these items are belonging of the artists personal background and life.
The bike installations have the name 'Forever' which remarks the early Chinese bicycle brand nevertheless when you look at the bikes, they look like neverending, forever. The way how the artist slid them into each other...or when you try to look through the installation with the bikes being parallel...it reminded me of 2 mirrors facing each other, creating a neverending resonance. (For a more monumental neverending bike installation go to Berlin to Martin Gropius Bau)
Additionally it also relates to the artists in a very personal way, using these types of bikes in his early years on a daily basis....which is now changing in China...more cars are on the road than bikes, this idea and identification was also executed in the 2nd room of this exhibition.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Main Room |
15 bikes shape a hexagonal star, with other symbols created in the same time as they were slid into each other.
First I did not want people on my pictures but I am happy I have them on the image as it is easier to see its grandiose measurement.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
The bike frames that were used to create the bigger installations.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
The Forever bikes that were sorted into 6 parallel lines of bikes, each comprising of 4 bikes. That is 24.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
Again I love that girl in the background....in the end of the echoes of the bicycles. Do you see what I meant with the facing mirrors?
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Forever |
In the 2nd room of the gallery, as I mentioned above, the concept was carried on, though illustrated from a different angle. More cars less bikes would produce more toxic gases emitted to the air, thus pollution. We already know that the pollution in the Chinese capital is already quite dangerous, hence what you can see are marble gasmasks emerge from marble graves.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Marble Lantern |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Mask |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Mask |
Have you ever thought of being close up in your own home? Being under control and governmental scrutiny? Ai Weiwei is not allowed to leave China...for long time he had cars waiting outside in front of his flat following all his movement and reporting it to the relevant bodies.
All that is nothing compared to his 81 days long secret detention in 2011, which is not so clandestine anymore.
I am telling all of this, because in the 3rd room of the gallery, I think those copies of everyday life personal items, like coathangers, toiletries and
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Handcuff |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Coathangers |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Coathanger |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Cosmetics |
After this I went to the gallery's courtyard where another extremely personal item made out of marble was displayed.
The armchair of Ai Weiwei's father. Look at them! Don't they look just like the real ones? Amazing, that your conscious knows that it is made out of marble, such a strong, cold and solid material, whereas it really looks warm and cozy. You can even see all the crinkles of the leather.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Marble armchair |
It could easily just be thought, that it is the other way round...it is actually a comfy armchair, made out of leather that was chemically treated to look like leather. It really looks a real furniture but let's stick with the true item which is marble.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Marble Armchair |
The gallery seems so much smaller from the outside than its actual size....so now I went down the stairs to the basement rooms, where a photo series was featured on the walls. These are Ai Weiwei's earlier photo series, called: 'Study of Perspective' on which he waved the middle finger to landmarks!
These images as well shows how well travelled the artists is... and now he cannot leave China...(personally after all those experiences I would be hungry to see more and more of the world and maybe would even go crazy.)
In the middle of the room, 2 sets of 4, removed glass taxi window handles were also exhibited. (I'll explain later)
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Window Cranks and Study Of Perspective Images |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Window Cranks and Study Of Perspective Images |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Study Of Perspective Images |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Study Of Perspective Images |
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Study Of Perspective Images |
Finally in the last room, a fairly long - 18 minutes - video explains the story of the glass Taxi Window Cranks....'Discard the old path of closed doors and rigidity and reject evil attempts to change the Party's banner - 2012'
The scene is...Ai Weiwei brings us into a taxi in Beijing in the time of the elections in 2012. Everything is filmed with a hidden camera, but we are able to hear the conversation.
When I joined it was the end of the film and just heard the government decided to have them cranks removed from the taxis...at that point, since upstairs the exhibition was focussing on the pollution in Beijing, I thought it was some kind of health and safety measure in the summer to prevent people inhaling the polluted air from the streets....What a bizarre, naive and false idea it was from me...
So I stayed and watched the full movie again, in which we were made it realised that the Chinese government ordered these cranks to be removed in order to prevent opposition spread anti-party flyers on the street from taxis.
I don't even really want to know what type of detention/punishment would be ordered to those taxi drivers, from whose cars anti-party leaflets were thrown out.
The driver also explains on the elections days how inaccessible Tiananmen Square will be. Taxis/cars would not be allowed to go through the area, so they would have either taken a detour, or rejected the customer. Rejecting the customer was allowed to the driver if the customer wanted to go Tiananmen Sq. Or if they took a passenger and the passenger insisted going to Tiananmen Sq then the driver was allowed to stop.
We were also explained that the windows of the buses were also sealed; fulfilling the same order.
Then the camera goes on the bus...we see the inside of the bus, then finding a seat next to one window...and after some time of taking out the screw...VICTORY...we can clearly see that a window was slid open a little.
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| Ai Weiwei Exhibition at Lisson Gallery, London - Discard the old path of closed doors and rigidity and reject evil attempts to change the Party's banner |
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