2021. 12. 11 – 2022. 4. 17
Ai Weiwei

The National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea (MMCA, Director Youn Bummo) unveils Ai Weiwei: Defend the Future, a solo exhibition of works by Ai Weiwei, a globally-renowned artist, filmmaker, architect, and activist, from Saturday, December 11, through Sunday, April 17, 2022, at MMCA Seoul.

Ai Weiwei: Defend the Future is an exhibition of Ai Weiwei (born 1957) that is dedicated to the artist’s numerous artworks on the themes of freedom of expression and the lives of refugees. The artist has been highly active in a wide range of areas, from painting and photography to film, installation, architecture, public art, ceramics, and publication. Ai is also highly praised as a leading artist for his active communication via various social media channels—including his blog, Twitter, and Instagram, among others—representing today’s digital era.

The title of the exhibition, “Defend the Future,” (which is literally translated as “The Future of Humans” in Korean) is a combination of “humans,” a leading theme of Ai’s artistic agenda, and “future,” the artist’s main artistic pursuit. In Quotes (2019), a collection of major comments made throughout human history on the theme of human rights, Socrates said, “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world,” Ai has deeply pondered his role as a global citizen and humanism (being human) in general. Ai’s life and art express that it is important for us, as dignified humans, to enjoy freedom, freedom of speech and freedom of expression, in our generation and also in future generations.

His series of works on freedom of expression and resistance to oppression have demanded dignity and basic human rights from his perspective as an artist as well as a human being. Freedom of expression is the most basic right required for individuals in a society to live as “decent human beings.” The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, announced in 1948, stated, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers” (Article 19). However, the right to freedom of expression is a right that has never actually been completely guaranteed in the real world. In Ai’s art, “human” is simultaneously a value to pursue and an environment and condition in which art can be made sense of in that his art and life both pursue freedom of expression and challenge oppression and surveillance. Ai has been active in encouraging people to speak out about unfair situations, and his actions have made a difference in the real world. In other words, he thinks, dreams, and works to create a reality in which we can “live the best life possible.”

The exhibition will showcase Ai’s representative works that transcend the dualities of the East and West, including his photography series Study of Perspectives, 1995-2011 (2014); Study of Perspective in Glass (2018) and Black Chandelier (2017-2021), both in Murano glass created in collaboration with the Berengo Studio on Murano Island, Venice; Porcelain Pillar with Refugee Motif (2017) and Ruyi (2012), made from ceramics from Jingdezhen, a place known for porcelain production in China. The exhibition is expected to take visitors on a journey into the artist’s time and space, allowing them to browse through about 120 pieces of Ai’s representative works that ranges from a 12-meter bamboo figure reminiscent of a jade burial suit from the Han Dynasty (ca. 2000 years ago), through a documentary about the Rohingyas (stateless Indo-Aryan ethnic group residing in Myanmar), to a Neolithic Vase with Coca-Cola Logo.

At the Museum Madang, a large-scale installation work titled Tree (2015) will greet visitors. It is assembled from the dead branches, roots, and trunks of trees such as camphor, cedar, and gingko that the artist gathered from the mountainous southern area of China.

One of most spectacular works in this exhibition is Yuyi (2015) in Gallery 6. It is a 12-meter-tall human figure made of bamboo. The title comes from the jade burial suits made as armor for entombed emperors of the Han Dynasty. Ai Weiwei used a traditional kite-making method with bamboo to create the figure. In this way, the artist brings into the world of contemporary art the magnificence of Chinese history and cultural heritage item; in addition to traditional kite-making, he also used Neolithic earthenware and ceramics of Jingdezhen, among others, as the medium of his art creation.

Gallery 7 mainly showcases the artists‘works on refugees and human rights. Laundromat (2016) consists of clothes and shoes collected at the Idomeni makeshift refugee camp on the border between Greece and Macedonia. The camp gradually expanded after the Macedonian border crossing from Idomeni, known as the route to the Balkan Peninsula, was closed. At the end of May 2016, the Greek government emptied the Idomeni camp and began evicting the refugees residing there. Ai collected items that had been left behind, took them to his Berlin studio, thoroughly washed, repaired, and ironed them, and made a list of the items. They were items of clothing that had been worn by people of various ages, from children to adults, such as body suits for newborns, children’s dresses that seem to have been for special occasions, and small pairs of pants with colorful dots. Laundromat, discomfortingly evokes the existence of people that are now absent.

In the Medialab, there are marble and jade sculptures such as Marble Helmet (2015) and Marble Takeout Box (2015) along with the famous ceramic work He Xie (2011). He Xie, meaning “river crab,” commemorates the feast that Ai Weiwei hosted to bring attention to the ordered demolition of his Shanghai studio by the Chinese authorities in 2010. River crabs are a delicacy in China, but have also come to represent a subversive element in contemporary culture. The term “he xie,” a homophone for “harmony,” a buzzword of the government, became slang for censorship carried out under the guise of ensuring stability.

Under six key terms—Freedom of Expression; Art and Activism; Government, Power, and Making Moral Choices; The Digital World; History, the Historical Moment, and the Future; and Personal Reflection—Ai Weiwei’s videos, archives, and about 30 books about him and his oeuvre, including his recent memoir, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows (Crown, 2021), are showcased in the archive section. These six key terms have been extracted from Weiwei-ism: Ai Weiwei (Princeton University Press, 2012) a collection of Ai Weiwei’s online and offline quotes edited by Larry Warsh. Photographs, videos, and books related to Ai’s works are also on display, enabling visitors to delve deeper into the life and work of the artist.

An on-line artist talk is scheduled to take place on 2022. On December 10, following the exhibition at the MMCA, there will be a special screening of the film Ai Weiwei at COEX K-POP SQUARE MEDIA in Seoul, hosted by UK’s CIRCA to mark International Human Rights Day.

MMCA Director Youn Bummo said that the exhibition is “one that displays the artist’s world of art through which he expresses the social duty of art and his own aesthetic accomplishments.” He also added, “It will present an opportunity for the viewer to ponder the value of life and human dignity as a global citizen, a concept proposed by Ai Weiwei.”

MMCA
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