At the
Faurschou Foundation until Sunday 26
Over the past year, the foreign media has caught Ai Weiwei fever. So you’d think an exhibition that features three works by Ai, and one by Liu Wei, would draw big crowds. It isn’t. But while this back catalogue raid is no tour de force, it does mark Faurschou’s reincarnation from profit-making gallery to art foundation. First up is Ai’s ‘Map of China’ (2004), made from
tieli wood that the artist sourced from Ming and Qing Dynasty temple ruins. Like the other works on show, ‘Map’ should be viewed as part of a wider series. By using materials once deemed anathema during the Cultural Revolution to make a beautifully detailed work of art, Ai questions the value some objects enjoy over others – although for many, the culminating expression of this sentiment came when Ai shattered a Han Dynasty urn for a performance piece.
Also on show here is one of Ai’s most confrontational works, a large-scale printed table featuring 5,196 names of children missing after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In the context of his other works that touch upon the disaster, such as ‘Remembering’, an installation of 9,000 children’s backpacks exhibited in Germany, both stand as memorials and protests against the shoddy building standards employed in the schools that collapsed.
Also worth checking out is the small pile of Ai’s ceramic sunflower seeds (pictured), taken from the 100 million originally exhibited in the Tate Modern in London and now being bought up in installments all over the world. The final work is Liu Wei’s Don’t Touch (2011), predictably placed in the room behind the man of the hour. Representing Lhasa’s Potala Palace and constructed out of dog chews, it mocks the need to constantly ‘gnaw’ on such buildings and the tragic, often mythological events associated with them.
While this exhibition is in no way a wide selection of these artists’ best works, they are worth visiting in the flesh. As always at Faurschou, the exhibits are sparsely placed, with plenty of breathing room, a boon to pieces which, although part of a wider story, still stand up to individual scrutiny.