Why Young People Need to Know About Ai Weiwei

It is very much our mission at tigernoodles to use the context of youth creativity to cultivate a space where everyone can feel welcome, feel free to express themselves without judgment, and when necessary, talk about important issues like climate change, mental health and intergenerational connection through art. We have purposefully shied away from what might be considered blatantly controversial, as we would rather keep our focus on the more uplifting aspects of the act of being creative.

However, we do strongly believe that it is important for young people (and everyone, really) to have heroes whom they can look up to, especially in the creative arts. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is most assuredly one of those heroes. True, some might consider his work to be intentionally provocative - but it is only so in the way that it seeks to provoke thinking, learning and solutions, while never meaning to simply shock for the shocking sake of it.

(click on above images to enlarge)

On October 28 the venerable Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York opened the greatly anticipated exhibition 'Ai Weiwei: Illumination". The title comes from an incident in which the artist was assaulted for standing up for his beliefs, subsequently injured, and then came to a profound revelation - the "illumination" - as a result. It's important to state here that unflinchingly defending one's principles will indeed often lead to greater clarity about what matters most in our lives; and arguably the best art is always seeking to attain that kind of clarity.

Ai Weiwei was born in China in 1957, and was influenced early on by his poet father Ai Qing, who himself fearlessly stood up for intellectual freedom during a time of repressive government censorship in the 1950s and 60s. His son later remarked that, "The whirlpool that swallowed up my father upended my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry to this day."

During the 1980s, the younger Ai was one of the rare few who left China to study abroad, attending college in Philadelphia, San Francisco and New York City - absorbing Western notions of cultural resistance along the way (he was a fan of The Clash and early hip-hop). Although he returned to China in 1993 when his father took ill - Ai Qing passed away in 1996, aged 86 - it wasn't until he started a regular blog in 2005 that he took up a more deliberate, intentional opposition to the corruptions of the Chinese government...though the blog was shut down by its host company in 2009. He has since used his art to make his voice heard.

The exhibit at Vito Schnabel includes several of the hallmarks of his artistic methodology, the first being the autobiographical element, as the title work refers to the specific aforementioned incident of public defiance that he was involved in back in 2009. Yet he also inserts himself as the figure of Judas in 2022's 'The Last Supper in Turquoise', which urges viewers to always question what they see - and which like 'Illumination' is made up of thousands of repurposed LEGO bricks. It not only aesthetically and viscerally reimagines the iconic Renaissance era painting by Leonardo da Vinci, it also pays homage to Andy Warhol's penchant for co-opting famous or infamous imagery, and using "pop art" techniques to construct a new "media age" version.

Most prominently featured is Ai's awe-inspiring 'Iron Root', which stands about 12-feet tall, and belongs to a series that draws attention to the degradation and endangerment of the natural world - a subject that has motivated him for going on two decades now. He also continues a theme that dates back to his notorious but humorous 'Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn' in 1995, with his 2024 'Han Dynasty Vase with a Newly Applied Glaze' again expressing his deliberate lack of reverence for China's ancient markers of culture and wealth. The symbolism of disparaging the past in order to find a new way forward still profoundly resonates.

It should be pointed out here that not all of Ai Weiwei's work is appropriate to introduce children to, as some of the themes and even the language are best left to adult consumption. But the essential message encoded into the works in this timely Vito Schnabel exhibit is one that should certainly be encouraged in young people of any age: make your voice heard, and never let it be silenced.

'Ai Weiwei: Illumination' is on view at Vito Schnabel Gallery in New York through January 23.

(Parents: A great way to introduce your kids to Ai Weiwei is this amazing 2023 Orchard Books/Scholastic title 'On the Tip of a Wave: How Ai Weiwei's Art Is Changing the Tide', by acclaimed author Joanna Ho.)