Interview: Alison Klayman on getting to know Ai Weiwei

poptech:

Alison Klayman is a freelance journalist and documentarian currently finishing a film about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. Ai is one of China’s most well-known and controversial artists, and in recent years has produced a body of work that is often highly critical of the Chinese government. In April 2010, Ai Weiwei was detained by Chinese authorities and held for nearly three months with virtually no contact with the outside world — an event that spurred much international criticism directed at the Chinese government. Klayman’s documentary, titledNever Sorry, tracks Ai’s life and work during the period Klayman was in China between 2006-2010. Klayman plans to debut Never Sorry in 2012 on the international film festival circuit.

PopTech: When you began shooting Ai Weiwei, did you have a sense of how you wanted to tell his story?
Alison Klayman: I really wanted to do a good job of letting people get to know him as a person. Through him you get to know so much about where China’s been and where it’s going. For me, it was about how he was finding his ways to express himself and how other people in China were responding to it. So it was a story about the diversity of opinion in China. To take one person, get to know him on a human level, and through that, start to appreciate that China was not a monolithic place at all.

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Being Blog:

Walker Art Center Honors Silenced Voices with Public Sit-In

by Trent Gilliss, senior editor

This week the Walker Art Center organized a silent demonstration outside its doors. Inspired by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s 2007 installation “Fairytale: 1001 Qing Dynasty Wooden Chairs” and commemorating what would have been his 100th day of detention this week, the Minneapolis-based cultural institution invited the public to bring a chair of one’s own to their Hennepin Avenue terrace to acknowledge the many artists around the world “who work under oppressive conditions where artistic freedom is compromised.”

After people from Ai Weiwei’s studio heard about the effort, they sent a desk chair from his Beijing studio, which was placed among the other chairs. Guess which one it is.

More photos of the turnout can be seen on the Walker’s Facebook page.

All photos courtesy of the Walker Art Center.

The leading Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has accepted a teaching post at a Berlin university, a month after he was released from detention. But it is uncertain whether the Chinese authorities will allow him to leave because he remains under tight surveillance.

One more reason to move to Berlin…

(via Ai Weiwei accepts teaching job in Germany | Art and design | The Guardian)

iTeeth:

Xinhuanet, China’s state-run news service, reports:

The Beijing police department said Wednesday that Ai Weiwei has been released on bail because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from.

No word yet on his whereabouts, however, and his family says they haven’t yet heard from him.

 According to Hyperallergic, Ai texted his lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, confirming that he’s been released.

"We listen very consciously at times with our ears but we also hear and listen with our bodies. We feel physical vibrations through surfaces as sound vibrates through a space and it activates emotions immediately and it also activates imagination."

Here we go…

The Notion Collective:

It’s been a long weekend at the Notion office/studio/lab/radio factory. 21 radios, ready for the Foshay! If you’re in Minneapolis this weekend, be sure to stop by and have a look, and if you’re not then tune in online.

One week left to submit your audio idea to be broadcast from the Foshay!

Northern Spark approaches quickly, and we’re still seeking audio submissions for Station Identification, our one-night project on the observation deck of the Foshay Tower in Minneapolis, MN. We’ll be broadcasting live all night from 9pm June 4th to 6am June 5th, so we’ve got plenty of air time to fill. Some ideas:

• Come to the Foshay the night of and tell a story, sing, or do whatever it is you do.
• Send us some music you’ve been working on. (We’ll be streaming it so you don’t have to worry about downloads!)
• Send us that amazing audio recording you made with your smartphone and have no idea what to do with.
• Anything really, just as long as it’s sound!

The deadline is in one week (Monday, May 30th). See the call for submissions for more info, or email your idea to “notioncollective” at gmail. 

(photo: Daytime view from the Foshay observation deck by Jennifer Arave)

[ reposted from The Notion Collective ]

What’s a “Burble Bup”? Why, It’s Goverors Island’s First Secret Art Hideout, Of Course

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