FREE ADMISSION FOR  Fukushima Art Project + MoMA Visit

Fukushima Art Project CN/JP 2015, R: Ai Weiwei, 30 Min;

In August 2014, the Japanese art collective Chim↑Pom invited Ai Weiwei to create an artwork in the Fukushima Nuclear Zone as part of the project “Don’t Follow the Wind.” After analyzing research materials gathered from an initial site visit to the exclusion zone, Ai created two works, A Ray of Hope and Family Album. Fukushima Art Project chronicles Ai Weiwei’s investigation of the exclusion zone site, as well as the installation of the two artworks.

MoMA Visit CN 2009, R: Ai Weiwei, 49 Min, Non-narrative film – insges. 79 Min

In 2009, a delegation of trustees from the Museum of Modern Art visited Ai Weiwei’s studio in Beijing. Ai made a snap decision to document the visit, hiding three cameras in his compound to voyeuristically record the coming and going of this preeminent group. The day of the visit held special significance to Ai because it coincided with the 47th anniversary of Chairman Mao’s Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art. After Yan’an, the Communist Party of China became deeply involved in matters pertaining to art and literature, placing Ai’s father, the celebrated poet Ai Qing, in jeopardy. The oppressive cultural practices established after the Yan’an Forum remain the party line today. The irony therefore of this prestigious coterie from the art institution most representative of the Western art establishment dropping by for a studio visit in a casual manner no different from their visiting a Peking duck restaurant, was not lost on Ai. The MoMA visit foreshadowed future engagement by Western art institutions looking to China for global expansion and so-called cultural exchange.