Monthly Archives: November 2011

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UPDATE–Ai Weiwei, Pornography, and the Words of HU

The authorities have moved on from Ai’s photographer Zhao Zhao, and moved to charge him with circulating pornographic pictures online.  I’d be delighted if any readers of this blog could speculate on the implications for him.

Meantime, I just note that, as reported by XINHUA, on the same day Hu Jintao was making a speech to roughly 3000 members of the Literary/Art world (unrelated observation that the Chinese 文艺界 is such a beautifully convenient word that in three characters does so much).  This was in conjunction with the 9th Congress, and his appearances will include other speeches on other topics.  Still, his comments on the cultural world strike a rather bizarre note given the current predicament of China’s most famous artist (outside of China, anyway), and one of its leading figures in other respects domestically.  Here a bit of the flavor of Hu’s speech (with an aside or two by yours truly–just couldn’t resist):

在改革开放和社会主义现代化建设进程中，我国文艺事业生机勃勃、硕果累累。广大文艺工作者坚持与时代同进步、与人民共命运，为人民奉献了大量思想内涵丰富、艺术品质上乘的精神食粮，进一步巩固了大团结大繁荣大发展的生动局面。

 In the [seemingly eternal!!!] process of reform and opening up and socialist modernization, the variety and vibrancy of our literature and art continues to blossom. The greatest of our artists and writers insist on progressing with the times, and in common destiny with the people. Their effort is focused on serving the people with rich content and artistic quality, providing ample food for thought in order to further consolidate [he could have said “harmonize”] the great unity, great prosperity, and great advancement in this most exciting moment in our country’s historical development.

The vibrancy and food for thought are all Ai’s, but the “common destiny” is the challenge.  If nothing else, we might observe a poignant and important contrast: the official view of art (if we take Hu at his word) is that art is constructive, even highly powerful.  What artist wouldn’t want to fulfill the call to this mission?

我国社会主义文艺以昂扬的精神、奔放的激情吸引和感染着亿万人民，对满足人民精神需求、丰富人民精神世界、增强人民精神力量、促进人的全面发展发挥着不可替代的作用。

Our country’s socialist literature and art, by lofty spirit and unrestrained passion, plays in irreplacable role in inspiring hundreds of millions of people, satisfying their spiritual needs, enriching their spiritual world, enhancing their spiritual strength, and promoting their overall progress.

Of course, such work is easier said than done, as Ai and countless others are constantly discovering.

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Here We Go Again: Naked People for Ai Weiwei

The Shanghaiist reports that a movement is afoot to garner more support for Ai by posting nude pictures ala the one above.  The list of such supporters is increasingly interesting, as described by Shanghaiist:

Activists who have posted their nude pictures to support Ai Weiwei include some usual suspects – Zuola, who posed as Michaelangelo’s David; Tufuwugan who posted an image of him looking to the mountains with his bare posterior facing the camera; and Hong Kong-based Wen Yunchao, who posed with an effigy of thecaonima (“grass mud horse”) covering his family jewels. In 2009, Wen infamously posted a picture of his pubesshaved down to the “t” of the Twitter logo when he embarked on a “de-Maoification” campaign, urging his followers to “get rid of mao”.

The line-up on the other side even more interesting, though.  Apart from the Chinese establishment, which, according to this Washington Post article,is now setting its sights on a photographer associated with Ai (Zhao Zhao) for his “pornography”, this gang of anti-nudity advocates includes Facebook itself, which may have just limited FB page of Alison Klayman for carrying the same images that I’ve posted previously on this blog (heavens! is WordPress next?!!??).  Alison, of course, is the documentary filmmaker whose work on Ai Weiwei (“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry“) appeared this year.  If it is true that Facebook has effectively censored some of Alison’s choices, we have an extraordinary extension of China’s firewall and an escalation of arguably the major global conflict of our time–the battle for information.  This one to my mind matters more than the Google case.  Google’s search function was bound to be and should be challenged by other services (百度–in the Chinese case at least), as a multiplicity of avenues, sources, not to mention languages, must be maintained.  Facebook as platform, however, hopefully will remain unfettered for the time being.
In earlier posts I was concerned that no one was much able to consider the phenomenon 0f the challenge of nudity in historical perspective.  I still am. However, we can also see that the strategy of stripping down to make a point continues to be effective on some level.

 

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figuring AI WEIWEI

image from Reuters article

Ai Weiwei  fined 2,400,000.

(or is it “nearly 2,000,000?” –or is it 15 million yuan”)

So what’s up with everyone’s math?  Is this such a difficult calculation that Huffington Post and Reuters can’t sort out what the $ equivalent of the 15,000,000 RMB fine is?  Alas.

And anyway, I’ve been waiting for some time now to find out what this amount would be. One wonders how they came up with 15,000,000.  In fact, one wonders how they would use it, if in fact he decides to pay it–basic infrastructure for Cao chang di 草场地?  But mostly, one wonders what the impact will be on the artistic community at large, being the other Chinese artists (or is that, ALL Chinese artists?) suddenly wondering how much THEY owe in income taxes. As I’ve said before, this strikes me as more or less genius maneuver by the Chinese government, a play to make Ai into something like Bernie Madoff (in the eyes of less well-heeled Chinese populace).

or, a genius idea which seems to be backfiring badly.  Ai’s microblog (a wonder that that’s still up) is taking in donations, and his Twitter is alive with the complicated issue (?) of whether he should take the money outright, or just accept a “loan”.  The conversation on Twitter, anyway, clearly demonstrates that loan, gift, or what have you the contributor are taking their own action as a mode of protest. THe conversation is also keeping a running tally of donations (2.5 million as I type). Thus, Chinese government attempts to outsmart contemporary political dissent with crafty legal/economic maneuver and gets outmaneuvered by same dissent in the form of, of all things, a high-profile sympathy fund for the very individual they’re trying to shut down.  There are times when I wonder if someone in Beijing isn’t playing this all to his/her own purpose, deliberately taking the wrong steps.

Regardless, its plain to see that post-incarceration Ai Weiwei continues to be just as much of a conduit for discussion of freedom of expression as ever.  He is Art Politicized completely, even beautifully.  No better example of that than in the image, NYT, below; if something so banal as a man going to pay his taxes can be so fraught with meaning, I’d say winner (Ai) takes all.

 

NYT