Ai WeiWei says “Think Different”

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Isaac

OpenArt in Örebro, Sweden is the 2008 brainchild of locals Mats Nilsson and Lars Jonsson. They dreamed of cutting-edge “art” on display in public locations. And guess what? Their dream came true…. and rapidly. Now in 2015, it is the biggest such event in Scandinavia. This year includes a focus on Chinese artists so no surprise that it features a major work by Ai Weiwei. It blows in the wind and blows me away!!

Ai WeiWei is known for confronting – and being arrested by – Chinese authorities. He questions everything about the culture of imposed conformity of his own country. This work, “Think different (How to hang workers’ uniforms)” consists of 375 coveralls in six different colours hung well above head height along Köpmangatan, an Örebro street. These are workers’ uniforms used in China in the massive electronics and computing manufacturing industries. The coveralls flap and flicker in the wind casting disconcerting shadows on the street below. Western people stroll beneath. I wonder if they are thinking differently.

So who is Ai WeiWei telling to think differently? Is it me, the Western viewer? Is it Chinese people? Is it the Chinese authorities? In fact, thinking about it, “Think Differently (How to hang workers’ uniforms)” does make me think differently. Here are some questions that run through my head when I look up at these rows of coveralls. I am reminded of assembly lines. How many Chinese people work to make products destined for the western world? Are they paid well? Are they aware of workers’ rights? What are they interested in? What are their home lives like? Or is Ai WeiWei telling me that the real price of western consumerism is paid by Chinese workers? This work is brilliant and provocative. I’m pleased I went back to Örebro!

#alyaakamel

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Robin

I open my Facebook homepage. I see a bundle of red wool pulled into a heart shape. Amid the thousands of photos that I come across each day via the internet, this stands out. It has a simple and naïve charm. It is posted by Alyaa Kamel, the queen of that corner of cyberspace where “art” and social media blur into one. The text of the post reads: #Iloveme #love #heart #loveisnow #lovingmyself #process #evolution #respect #act #say #talk #think #arttherapy #life #world #humanity #contemporaryart #design #myart #wool #paper #alyaakamel (Interesting!)

I head into Geneva’s old town and visit this striking and versatile painter in her studio. I am immediately captivated by an inky dervish-like figure, beautifully proportioned, poised and slightly stooped as if resting between manic whirls. However, my objective today is neither to admire nor to buy. I am after a behind-the-scenes-and-screens glimpse of Alyaa’s virtual gallery. We chat. I ask her about her unrelenting Facebook activity that could stretch to ten posts per day. She’s a little elusive. She says it’s about promoting and selling her work. I am not totally convinced. It is the “why” of so much activity that fascinates and that I really want to explore. There must be other incentives and impulses at play. I struggle to pitch the right question.

Of all the images that Alyaa posts, her people fascinate the most. Who they are is unclear. They are frequently hooded or veiled. They are oppressed people; people in ruins; displaced people; poor people; crowded people; and people in distress. They are, in brief, a kind of faceless generic for those people about whom every day world news is made. She just feels for people caught up in events over which they have no control and she pours it all out on Facebook.

Alyaa travels far and wide often in the company of Martin La Roche. Their clothes, their parties, their dinners and hotel rooms are all posted on their profile pages. Amid all this, she also executes and posts exquisite little sketches. Leafing through her (paper) sketchbook is a pleasure and a privilege. Take a look at this hotel in Stockholm!

The most intriguing theme that Alyaa Kamel posts by the day – and the most revealing – is Little Alyaa. This pre-adolescent feminine persona expresses any and every little girl thought or emotion that might flit through the mind of an adult in a moment of regression. A cloth version travels in Alyaa’s handbag and does cameo photo-calls wherever her creater takes her. Little Alyaa rattles my sense of macho. I feel manipulated and irritated by her. I wish I could say I had absolutely no interest in her o-so-cute-girlie-on-valentine-card-addressed-to-self sentiments. But I can’t resist the pull of her charm, the more so with following her on Facebook. I come to realise that Little Alyaa is a very articulate little miss. She is brilliantly characterised and presented. She has, inevitably, a huge, and not entirely female, following. Just as Alyaa Kamel’s people speak of world events, Little Alyaa speaks to Big Alyaa’s friends and admirers. And just to tighten the saccharine screws, Little Alyaa sometimes shares a Facebook post with a teddy bear. The text is more revealing still….. ‪#‎givemebackmylife‬ ‪#‎life‬ ‪#‎teddyismine‬ ‪#‎teddybear‬ ‪#‎IamwhoIam‬ ‪#‎identity‬ ‪#‎innocence‬ ‪#‎childhood‬ ‪#‎mylife‬ ‪#‎live‬ ‪#‎alive‬ ‪#‎art‬ ‪#‎alyaakamel‬ ‪#‎contemporaryart‬ ‪#‎design‬ ‪#‎decoration‬ ‪#‎illustration‬ ‪#‎drawing‬ ‪#‎fineart‬

I admire Alyaa’s eclectic work and enjoy her unrelenting use of Facebook. However, her hashtag word clouds represent much more than a strategy of promotion and sales. They serve to bare her soul and simultaneously act as gaping virtual look-at-me dragnets that communicate with and capture a wide variety of other emotional and creative fish. But the question of “why” remains. A generous answer is that this behaviour signals a talented painter of the twenty-first century using social media unashamedly to promote her work by expressing her fears, hopes, longings and aspirations to as wide an audience as possible. A less generous answer is that she has a compulsion to put herself “out there” on social media. Perhaps the real answer lies somewhere in between. My attempt at analysis of Alyaa Kamel’s Facebook activity stops here. I just love it. #hugrobin #robinneedsabeer

Another Place… near Liverpool

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Robin

Liverpool is a great place to visit. I love its strong sense of civic pride. In a previous era, this vibrant city on the north-west coast of England was a giant hub for shipping and global trade. Now, it’s more famous for two football teams and the Beatles. I have an hour or two to spare and head for Crosby sands on the Mersey estuary. I am going to Another Place… for the second time.

Antony Gormley‘s “Another Place” is one of the UK’s most famous and recognisable public sculptures. It even has its own visitor’s parking! When I arrive, the tide is out. From the concrete sea-wall I survey the miles of open sand-flats on which stand widely spaced upright human figures. They are still, vigilant and uniformly determined. Some are way out on the water’s edge. They all stare defiantly out to the horizon. Another Place comprises one hundred life-size iron figures each of which weighs 650kg and is cast from a mould of Gormley’s own naked body. It is impossible to capture it’s beauty, scope and genius in one photograph.

The Iron Men – as they are called around here – make sure the ships reach port safely.

Those furthest out on the flats watch the turbines turn on the Crosby wind farm. As the tide comes in, the waves break over and then submerge these hardy sentinels.

Sir Antony Gormley was born in Yorkshire in 1950. He came from a privileged background being educated at Ampleforth College and Trinity College, Cambridge. He went on to study fine arts at St. Martins and the Slade in London. His sparkling but unconventional career in sculpture and theatre set-design has brought him awards, prizes, fellowships and honours galore. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2014 for services to the arts. Quite some guy!

The Iron Men were constructed in 1997. Before coming to Crosby in 2005, they had spent time on beaches in Germany, Belgium and Denmark. In 2007, a controversial decision by the local council ensured that Another Place has a permanent home here.

I first visited Another Place in 2009 when this photo was taken. The January wind chilled to the bone. The tide was not far out. At an individual level, the Iron Men did not really inspire. Some were waist deep in water. Some, with only their heads above the waves, looked like brave winter swimmers. They held no promise of reflection or emotion. I did not stay long. If I am honest, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. I felt only a flicker of curiosity but, fortunately, enough to ensure my return.

Now, in 2015, I see only staggering originality. When describing Another Place, Gormley says: “In this work, human life is tested against planetary time. This sculpture exposes to light and time the nakedness of a particular and peculiar body; no hero, no ideal, just the industrially reproduced body of a middle-aged man trying to remain standing and trying to breathe, facing a horizon busy with ships moving materials and manufactured things around the planet.” I wonder if his notion of time, reinforced through the local council’s decision about the Iron Men’s permanence, would allow him to predict that these figures not only confront and battle the elements but also become their own little sea-side eco-systems.

The further out to sea the Iron Men are, the more encrusted with barnacles, mussels and sea-weed they become. They are no longer industrial reproductions of their creator; each has developed its own tidal personality.

So much for the “who,” the “what,” the “when,” the “where,” and the “how” of the Talking Beautiful Stuff formula; but what about the “… and what does it mean for me?” Curiosity took me back to see Another Place. The conditions were different the second time. I found something that is not only beautiful in its totality but also something hugely admirable both in its concept and in the civic broad-mindedness that makes such an installation possible. Above all, I found the experience of strolling over Crosby sands from one from Iron Man to another totally uplifting.

If you visit Liverpool, do not go to Another Place just because you have an hour or two to spare. Make an hour or two to go to Another Place.