Artist Presentation Write Up

Bri Murphy and I researched issues of human rights in contemporary art and focused on artist's Jenny Holzer and Ai WeiWei. Below is a written statement on our findings, including citations:

Human Rights in Contemporary Art

    The issue of human rights is a broad umbrella of discussion that involves the struggle of activists against a specific higher organization or government.   Currently, the movement known as “Occupy Wall Street” has made headlines with its protestors denouncing the inequality of wealth in the current U.S. economy.  This demonstration of assembly and protest is akin to similar happenings all over the world concerning social, political and economic topics, as well as throughout history.  It is only natural that amid the discord in the political climate the visual and performing arts boom with reflections of economic inequality and social injustices.
    In this strain, we first look to Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and his controversial ceramic objects.  In “Sunflowers Seeds,” installed at the Tate Modern in 2010, Weiwei employed citizens of a small Chinese town that has a rich history of Imperial porcelain production in an effort to capture the effect of historical relevance in his project.  The workers created an abundance of life-sized sunflower seeds and hand-painted each one to an astounding likeness.  The expansive installation was as interactive as it was politically and historically charged.  The Tate’s patrons could be found lying down amid the sea of grey created by the obscured sunflower seeds, the sea dwarfing the concept of individuality that could be extracted from Weiwei’s act of outsourcing labor.  He addresses issues of mechanized production and history’s ugly industrial past involving the subjugation of the worker.  Through this project, Weiwei helped save the town from financial ruin by putting money back into the economy for the descendents of a noble ceramic tradition.  He as an artist recognized the value of this community in despair, its inhabitants and their previously unanswered call for assistance.  As Adrain Searle puts it in The Guardian,

“Sunflower Seeds refers to everyday life, to hunger (the seeds were a reliable staple during the Cultural Revolution), to collective work, and to an enduring Chinese industry. But it is also symbolic. It joins several previous Turbine Hall commissions – most recently Doris Salcedo's 2008 Shibboleth and Miroslaw Balka's How It Is – in a dialogue about the social and cultural place of art.”

While this piece was closed due to the health hazards associated with unfired clay, it stands as a recognizable icon and reference for Weiwei who has made a career of commenting on the inequalities and at times corruptive actions of the Chinese government.  

Another Weiwei work entails the destruction and defamation of archaic Chinese vessels, otherwise regarded as historically poignant pots.  Specifically, he dropped an urn created under the Han Dynasty, a dynasty established in 206 BCE.  This act of radicalism highlights Weiwei’s aim as an artist to clearly defy history as an act of protesting contemporary issues.  His approach is blunt, straightforward, and in your face.  As he himself said, “I do not think the issue of human rights can ever improve without a struggle.”  This point of view is interesting to keep in mind as we transition to another artist that deals with political and social issues.

    American born artist Jenny Holzer attempts to recontextualize architectural facades with her larger than life projections.  In her public displays, luminous letters give access to ideas that she appropriates from pre-existing prose for her viewers.   She cleverly addresses elements and principles of design, as her font selection remains uniform from location to location around the world, acting as her signature or trademark.  She uses her bold, fluid and clearly legible text-based imagery to open a forum for political discussion and contemplation.  Some quotes include, but are not limited to:

“To acquire a political meaning you don’t even have to be human.  Raw material will do, or protein feed, or crude oil…”

“I am afraid of the ones in power who kill people and do not admit grief…”

As many of her projected texts are not original, they are instead borrowed excerpts from poets and other works of literature that she deems appropriate to fit her perspective as an artist.  This gives a new light to her work, which is interesting if not problematic.  Where a viewer may assume she is dictating her beliefs in her own words, and therefore establishing a sort of personal connection to her viewers, she is once removed by expressing her views through a secondary source.  Through the precise literary selections, her monumental compositions give off a distinct feeling of alienation, despite their spatial and conceptual enormity.

    These two artists are radically different in their approach to the public art, which is notably heavily dictated by government systems that may hinder or discourage the self-expression of working citizens.  Where Holzer emblazons entire buildings with her borrowed words, Weiwei destroys a work of art not made by himself, but by a craftsman thousands of years prior.  Just as Holzer’s work is contemporarily American, democratic in regard to the hints of vandalism her projections impart on historical architecture, Weiwei’s work is as confrontational and inflammatory to communist China as he can muster.  It is intriguing to consider the artist’s country of origin and the ways the respective traditions, government, and cultures affect their attitudes as artists.  Furthermore, which approach to art can be deemed more effective in conveying the maker’s own perspective?  It is, of course, ideally up to the individual; something can be said for each side, as the radical ways of Ai Weiwei and the epic projections of Jenny Holzer both engage the public in the spirit of protest and condemnation of injustices in our contemporary climate.






Works Cited:

Gilsdorf, Bean. "Daily Serving » Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn." Daily Serving. 31 July 2010. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.dailyserving.com/2010/07/ai-weiwei-dropping-the-urn/>.

"Occupy Wall Street." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 19 Oct. 2011. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_Wall_Street>.

"Projections." Jenny Holzer - Projections. Web. 20 Oct. 2011. <http://www.jennyholzer.com>.

Smee, Sebastian. "Illuminated Poetry Delivers Insights at IC." Rev. of Jenny Holzer's "Projections" The Boston Globe [Boston] 26 July 2010. Boston.com. Globe Newspaper Company, 26 July 2010. Web. <http://i1.exhibit-e.com/cheimread/boston_globe_7_26_10.pdf>.

Tom. "» Blog Archive » Ai Weiwei’s Last Talk." Ondertussen in China. 5 Apr. 2011. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://oic.suspects.be/?p=900>.

Weiwei, Ai. "Concept." Aiweiwei.com. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. <http://www.aiweiwei.com/editorial/editframe.htm>.