Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Ai Weiwei - Without Fear or Favour

Just watched Imagine... on BBC1 – "Alan Yentob reveals how this most courageous and determined of artists continues to fight for artistic freedom of expression while living under the restrictive shadows of authoritarian rule."

It was a good show. Covered a few things I didn't already know...Afterwards, they set up a Live Chat with Ai Weiwei on the Imagine page of the beeb online. This is pretty similar to what you can do at the Tate – well, really, it's the only thing you can do at the Tate now we can no longer walk on the sunflower seeds...

One of the comments was "How do you feel that the Tate stopped letting people be with the sunflower seeds 'for health and safety reasons'?" and Ai Weiwei said "The Tate and I are still trying to find a way to make it possible for everyone to enjoy the work." 

I posted a few comments but they didn't come up and didn't get answered. I got a bit political... 
"Were you aware that when you showed your work at the Albion Gallery in Battersea in a brand new Norman Foster building, that Foster had spent years trying to get rid of an artist who lives and works on a barge moored on the riverfront of the building?" *
When that didn't get answered I posted,  "Help me Ai Weiwei, the BBC are censoring me!"

* see my original post on Nasty Norman here

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