Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds. 2010.
wow.
Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist, curator, architectural designer, social commentator, and activist. This past October 2010, Ai Weiwei's "Sunflower Seeds" was installed at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall. The work consists of 1 hundred million hand-painted porcelain seeds, each individually painted by an army of 1,600 Chinese artisans in the town of Jingdezhen. Weiwei and the curators encouraged visitors to walk across and roll in the work to experience and contemplate the essence of his comment on mass consumption, Chinese industry, famine and collective work. The Tate banned people from walking on the seeds on October 16th, due to health concerns over the dust created when attendees walked among the seeds...