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Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent figures in Chinese contemporary art and culture. The son of legendary poet Ai Qing, the younger Ai was a founding member of the avant-garde Stars groups in the late '70s. After living and working in New York from 1981 to1993, he returned to China and helped establish the famous Beijing East Village.
Artkrush contributor Samantha Culp interviews Ai about his groundbreaking work at documenta 12, including the Fairytale project, for which he brought 1,001 Chinese citizens to Kassel — home of the Brothers Grimm.
AK: How did the idea for Fairytale come about, and how did you find 1,001 people in China willing to participate in a project in Germany?
AW: I grew up in Xinjiang within a hardcore communist society — we got all our education in labor camps. (((This is where it starts to get good.)))
Today, it's a very different time; the development of political, economic, and technical systems has brought us to a completely new age.
At the same time, I think the old systems and power structures, based on the old thinking, are still here — especially in China, but also in the West. I believe that personal awareness and experience is absolutely essential for social change; that change should be based on an individual confrontation with reality.
When documenta asked me to do a project, I really wanted to do this exercise, Fairytale, of bringing 1,001 people to the event as a kind of disruptive intervention. It wasn't a specific commentary on documenta — any other show or fair still operates within the old framework of thought. This way of presenting [art], the kind of communication, who's doing what, how it's received — it's all based on the old structure.
My project draws from personal effort and results in an individual engagement, no matter who the viewer is — somebody who's art-savvy or somebody who doesn't know art at all, but is just willing to have contact with this experience.
I recruited participants on my personal blog. The whole process went so well on the Internet; we couldn't have done it otherwise. People really had a sense of trust in this new channel of expression, which was very encouraging. I didn't know them, they didn't know me, but we could still communicate well. Still, it was more or less intangible until the time when everyone actually got on the bus. I was very touched and impressed to finally see everyone as a real person.....
