FIFA 30th Edition: Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei: Without Fear or Favour

(UK / 2010 / 58 min. Director Matthiew Springford)



Ai Weiwei is one of China's best-known artist. He is ranked the most powerful person in contemporary art by Art Review magazine. He also merits an acclaim as an architect since he co-designing the Beijing's ''Bird's Nest'' Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, Ai Weiwei artistic expression is very versatile, he is also a photographer, curator and a blogger.

Among his other artistic achievements this film prominently features his latest work - a carpet of 100 million porcelain hand painted sunflower seeds, tue to their natural size. As this work is unveiled at the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern Gallery in London, narrator Alan Yentob reveals how this most courageous and determined of artists continues to fight for freedom of expression while living under the restrictive shadows of China authoritarian rule. For instance, In April 2011, he was arrested for ''tax evasion'' before being freed eighty days later with restricted free speech and movement.

Ai Weiwei created a variety of amazing art pieces which are shown in this documentary. For instance, he likes to pieces of furniture to create his sculptures. At times, he even cuts or variously modifies and reassembles antique items thus creating his own statements of artistic expression.


Do make a point to see this film. FIFA has awarded it the top prize for the best film made for television. If you wish to acquaint yourself more with this exceptional artist, here are a couple of videos about him in YouTube.

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seeds at the Tate video

A full version (in English) of Ai Weiwei Without Fear or Favour documentary is presently available  on You Tube

TED Film about  Ai Weiwei

N.B.

In 2015, Art FIFA presented a new documentary film about Al Weiwei: Ai Weiwei - Evidence. You can read about it in my post here:

http://news-reel.blogspot.ca/2015/03/fifa-2015-ai-weiwei-evidence.html