Why China Is Afraid of the Chameleon, Ai Weiwei

The last couple of weeks have seen an avalanche of articles concerning Ai Weiwei’s art projects and his ongoing fight against the Chinese government. The Chinese government’s insistence on lawbreaking and outlaw behavior on the part of Ai is nothing but a despotic veil covering the government’s true intent: the silencing, suppression, and censorship of artistic expression and dissent.

Reporting on Ai’s Hirshhorn retrospective, Roberta Smith’s recent NY Times article, The Message Over the Medium, concludes in a peculiar way.

Today we need all the great art and all the political agitation we can get. But it may be too much to expect that both will emanate with any frequency from the same person. By now, Mr. Ai’s art has helped carry him beyond art, where he is definitely somebody.

I wonder why Smith considers Ai’s “agitation” exclusive of an artistic practice? Perhaps it’s due to a worn out analysis which focuses the reading of art on a particular cultural lexicon and canon. Are Ai’s art works that quotidian and silent, specifically given the situation Weiwei currently faces? Are Ai’s crab installation not radically poetic?

Nonetheless, it is good to see that Ai’s plight is not forgotten. How can a global powerhouse expect to keep an artist silent given his major exhibitions and artistic-architectural projects, film,  fame,  and his relentless pursuit of free speech? In fact, Weiwei may be not only the strongest man in China, as described recently in the Wall Street Journal by the board members of CyberDissidents.org, themselves ex-political prisoners in Egypt, Iran, and Syria, but is perhaps also the most politically engaged artist worldwide.

A couple of weeks ago, Chinese officials said they were removing Ai’s business license because it had not met annual registration requirements. Ironically, Ai’s company has been unable to do so because police confiscated all its materials and its stamp when they detained Ai last year.

To call this absurd, impotent, and desperate attempt Kafkaesque is an understatement. Rather, it is reminiscent of men gathered around a board room table inspired by nothing other than to suppress the very same emotion and intellect they wish they could express. It is to attempt to murder a child’s need to call things as they truly are: unaffected and uncontaminated by cynicism, greed, power, and tyranny.

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