Ai Weiwei: WIthout Fear or Favour BBC Docu

[roddy]

BBC Alan Yentob documentary (interview?) on Ai Weiwei, 50 minutes long. I'd like someone to tell me if it's worth watching or not. Here's a BBC iPlayer (iWonder if we'll ever run out of iWords) link, but you'll need to be in the UK, or at least have a UK IP address.

Blurb:

Architect, photographer, curator and blogger, Ai Weiwei is China's most famous and politically outspoken contemporary artist. As Ai Weiwei's latest work is unveiled in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, 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.

[JenniferW]

Have you watched this yet?

I live in the UK and recorded this - but admit I've not yet watched it.

But there were several interviews with Ai Weiwei when this latest installation went on show at Tate Modern, and I enjoyed each of those. But then I like his work.

I wasn't sure when I first saw Ai Weiwei's work, but gradually I've come to like it more and more. Each piece I've seen (in Beijing exhibitions) seems pretty immediately accessible, but it does then stay with me, and I'm left still thinking about it from time to time several years later.

[JenniferW]

Roddy - Did you get around to watching this? I saw a BBC programme (I'm in the UK) about Ai Weiwei called 'Imagine' - was this the same programme, I wonder? Very interesting. Lots about his background, experiences in New York, his early work, and I felt I understood more about him and his work - made me like it all even more.

[roddy]

Hmm, I guess I should watch it then . . .

[JenniferW]

Only if you like, or are interested in his work.

Are you in Beijing? Have you seen his buildings in Cao Chang Di? These are in the programme, and it made me appreciate the times I'd been to various exhibitions out there, seeing the buildings, but after the first time of seeing them, just accepting them and no longer really paying great attention to them. Made me want to have another look at them, too. I started to see that it's a fine line between architecture and installation.

[kdavid]

I got this off TorrentDay and watched it today. I thought it was great.

I'd really like to see more on contemporary Chinese artists like Ai Weiwei. It just seems very difficult to "run into" this type of stuff on the mainland.

Perhaps others out there can suggest a few of Ai's contemporaries?

[JenniferW]

Have a look at The Red Gate gallery's website - and go there whenever you're in Beijing. As well as going to 798 and Cao Chang Di, to look at whatever exhibitions are on there. That's all I've done over the past half dozen years or so, and though I couldn't reel off a list of names to you, I realise I'm recognising the work of key figures in the world of contemporary Chinese art. And don't scorn the National Art Museum in Beijing either. I saw a really good exhibition there earlier this year of recent acquistions. Good bookshop, too - though you've probably got good art books on your doorstep, too.

I never lived / worked in Beijing, but passing through on the way to various places I was working, I started to always add in some time for art exhibitions. You could do the same with Shanghai, too. Now, I'm retired and living back in the UK, but trips back to China are often just all about art for me - there's always a lot to see.

[JenniferW]

Watch this ..... a video made for The Tate gallery to go with their showing of Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seeds. http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/unileverseries2010/room3.shtm Quietly moving.

[jbradfor]

Seems to be another Ai Weiwei movie out: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

Anyone seen it? Is it similar to the BBC one?