Ai Weiwei: Monumental Junkyard, installation view, 2007
A new outdoor installation by the artist Ai Weiwei is on view at the Lewis Glucksman Gallery in Cork, Ireland, until 7 October. Entitled 'Monumental Junkyard', the Chinese artist was commissioned to create this new work by the Swiss collector Dr. Uli Sigg on the occasion of the exhibition 'The Year of the Golden Pig: Contemporary Chinese Art from the Sigg Collection', which was at the gallery earlier this year.
The installation has been designed to resemble a junkyard of building material that is typically evident in the suburbs of Chinese megacities. Dumped outside the gallery, the piles of materials are in fact 56 domestic doors reproduced in Chinese marble - a material that is resonant with the lofty projections of Renaissance sculpture, as well as with kitsch interior decor. The reproduction of wasted domestic doors in marble responds to issues of regeneration and historical-preservation, material and symbolic value, and the ambiguity of contexts as part of affluent consumerist society.
Ai Weiwei (born 1957, lives and works in Beijing) is one of the China's most influential contemporary artists. He also works as a curator, publisher, architect, and commentator on contemporary art and culture. In the late 1970s, he was a member of 'The Stars', a group of largely self-taught artists in Beijing who challenged the official communist mandate and helped set a new horizon of possibilities for contemporary art in China.
After moving to the USA in 1981, Ai Weiwei returned to China in 1993, where he started on a series of ambitious and provocative works: photographs, installations and sculptures using found objects and ancient relics. Influenced by the approaches of Dada, Duchamp, and Warhol, Ai Weiwei has created works which both incorporate and de-stabilise traditional aspects of Chinese culture.
Ai Weiwei's works respond to China's rich artistic heritage by reconfiguring objects such as Ming and Qing dynasty furniture and porcelain, Han dynasty urns and Neolithic vases.
His work has been shown extensively in the United States, Belgium, Germany, France, Korea and Japan. His work was included in the First Guangzhou Triennial 2002, China, the 48th Venice Biennale 1999, Italy, and the 2006 Biennale of Sydney. At documenta 12, he currently presents Fairytale, a work in which he brought over 1001 Chinese people to the small city of Kassel. As well as his artistic projects, Ai Weiwei has also recently worked as a consultant to architects Herzog and de Meuron in their design of the new Beijing Olympic Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games.
Dr Uli Sigg was the former Swiss ambassador to China. Together with his wife Rita, he has been building a collection devoted exclusively to Chinese art since the mid-1990s. The collection consists of more than 1,500 artworks across all artistic media. The exhibition 'The Year of the Golden Pig' presented a selection of works from the collection.
Ai Weiwei: Monumental Junkyard
Until 7 October 2007
Lewis Glucksman Gallery
University College Cork
Cork, Republic of Ireland
T: +353 21 490 1844
www.glucksman.org
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