AO Art Observed™

All photos by D. Terna Art Observed.

Yesterday, a crowd congregated outside the Chinese Consulate in New York City, protesting for the detention of artist Ai Weiwei on April 3rd, 2011.  Ai has been missing since, and the international community has expressed concern for his personal safety, as he has not been formally arrested yet and the circumstances surrounding his detention. The protest started at 1 pm EST. It was named “1001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei,” and was organized by Anne Pasternak–Creative Time’s President and Artistic Director–with the objective of promoting public awareness on this important issue of political and ideological censorship.

more images and story after the jump…

All photos by D. Terna Art Observed.

The dynamics of this political act simultaneously rendered homage to Ai’s piece “Fairytale,” where he brought a thousand Chinese people to a major art exhibition in Kassel, Germany on 2007. Following the indications on the press release that Creative Time put in circulation last week, the protesters brought chairs, placed them outside of the Chinese Consulate–located at 520 12th Ave–and sat, expressing their indignation on this matter, and requesting Ai’s immediate release.

Among the most prominent attendees were The New York Times’ art critic Roberta Smith and her husband, art critic Jerry Saltz. Saltz was spotted wearing a Rikrit Tiravanija T-shirt, perhaps as commentary on the relevance of public participation in this artistic orchestration of protest and performance, a fundamental element of Relational Aesthetics, the artistic movement to which Tiravanija is associated.

The protest also merged with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Foundation’s petitioning to the Chinese Culture Ministry for Ai Weiwei’s release, aiming to collect at least a million signatures from all over the world. Ai Weiwei is a very well-regarded figure in the international art scene, and his disappearance is an extremely sensitive subject that has caught the attention of many important actors on the international political arena, who have condemned the actions taken against the Chinese artist.

- D. Terna & M. Silva

This entry was posted on Monday, April 18th, 2011 at 7:58 pm and is filed under AO On Site. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.