Art Review Ai WeiWei
Anh Le
Art & Craft of Writing
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013
Ai WeiWei Art Review:
“Straight”
Art is one of the oldest ways in which humans communicate. Art can be dated back to humanities’ first steps, used as a mean to record and worship, such as the examples found in cave paintings of the Lascaux cave in France or the Venus of Willendolf. (Source #1)
And for a long time, art did not deviate from its original path as a tool for society. Artists lived only as servants to their churches, their nobles and their kings. As the churches held most of the commissions for art, the focus for a long time was religion. And as art kept growing through works like the Sistine Chapel from Michelangelo in 1483, we can all see how many humans strive so hard to perfect what they love.
After the next brief period in history, the term “propaganda” popped up, or “social commentary” as many call it. An example for this is the work “Rosie the Riveter” by Norman Rockwell, a big motivational artwork of the world war eras (Source #2). This is not a big deviation from art’s previous roles in society; however, artists are growing more and more independent, expressing their thoughts individually.
And Ai WeiWei is one of the contemporary artists who excel at making his thoughts heard and seen by the world. A fine example of this are messages such as the ones found in his sculptural work named “Straight”.
His installation named “Straight” might not be the most visually impressive piece of art out there, but it tells a story in a very powerful way that not many other works can pull off. Consisting only of rebar put together lying on the ground, “Straight” isn’t something that can impress you the moment you see it. It is however, the magnitude of the work and the origin of the material that is so powerful. Together, the “nearly forty tons of salvaged rebar from the Sichuan earthquake” tells a tragic story that otherwise never made the news anywhere else. (Source #3)
With almost forty
Art & Craft of Writing
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013
Ai WeiWei Art Review:
“Straight”
Art is one of the oldest ways in which humans communicate. Art can be dated back to humanities’ first steps, used as a mean to record and worship, such as the examples found in cave paintings of the Lascaux cave in France or the Venus of Willendolf. (Source #1)
And for a long time, art did not deviate from its original path as a tool for society. Artists lived only as servants to their churches, their nobles and their kings. As the churches held most of the commissions for art, the focus for a long time was religion. And as art kept growing through works like the Sistine Chapel from Michelangelo in 1483, we can all see how many humans strive so hard to perfect what they love.
After the next brief period in history, the term “propaganda” popped up, or “social commentary” as many call it. An example for this is the work “Rosie the Riveter” by Norman Rockwell, a big motivational artwork of the world war eras (Source #2). This is not a big deviation from art’s previous roles in society; however, artists are growing more and more independent, expressing their thoughts individually.
And Ai WeiWei is one of the contemporary artists who excel at making his thoughts heard and seen by the world. A fine example of this are messages such as the ones found in his sculptural work named “Straight”.
His installation named “Straight” might not be the most visually impressive piece of art out there, but it tells a story in a very powerful way that not many other works can pull off. Consisting only of rebar put together lying on the ground, “Straight” isn’t something that can impress you the moment you see it. It is however, the magnitude of the work and the origin of the material that is so powerful. Together, the “nearly forty tons of salvaged rebar from the Sichuan earthquake” tells a tragic story that otherwise never made the news anywhere else. (Source #3)
With almost forty