From ny mag:
"Dear Jerry:
Did you get to see the big Ai Weiwei installation at London’s Tate Modern? If so, tell us about it.
—William Landau
Dear William,
I did see the Ai Weiwei, and came close to missing the entire point.
A little background: Over the past few years, Ai Weiwei has paid hundreds of skilled artisans in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen (known for its porcelain trade, now faltering) to hand-make 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds out of porcelain. He then had scores of people hand-paint every one of these seeds with three or four gray stripes of the unfired watery clay mixture known as slip. At the Tate, the replica seeds are spread out in a huge field on the floor of the Turbine Hall.
A few hours before it opened, I was in the museum looking at the Gauguin show and saw the installation from a balcony high above, as the artist was finishing the setup. Since I had another appointment, I left, writing it off as another lame installation-art gesture. I hated it.
I had no idea people were going to be allowed to walk around on it. Fortunately, I woke up the next morning feeling guilty about snap-judging such a big work (it’s a critic thing), and when I went back, I was blown away. As I stood on this field of crunchy porcelain bits, I suddenly gleaned an approximation of China itself. A hundred million seeds and the huge physical field and my tiny place in it allowed me to actually sense the billion that is China. In true colonialist fashion, I was part of the millions in the West who were now walking on the billions of the East. It was an extraordinary illustration of infinity, impossibility, life, politics, proximity, and individuality. Crowds happily walked on the seeds; it was like a metaphysical beach, or limbo. Kids ran around, played games, or buried one another. Like many others, and in violation of the rules, I took home a handful of seeds. My wife kept pointing out gray clouds that puffed up wherever people were walking. She also pointed out that our hands and clothes were covered in the dust.
I thought nothing of it.
I should have. It turns out those clouds were the gray slip being ground off the porcelain seeds as they rubbed together underfoot. Two days later authorities shut down the piece. A notice posted on the Tate’s site reads in part: “We have been advised that the interaction of visitors with the sculpture can cause dust which could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time. In consequence, Tate, in consultation with the artist, has decided not to allow members of the public to walk across the sculpture.” Now it can only be seen the way I saw it that first day, from above or outside. I’m saddened that you can’t see it the way I did — but the metaphor is unmistakably powerful all the same. The coming together of these civilizations and numbers produces a toxic cloud."
___________________________________________________________
My words:
I loved reading of frolicking in the porcelain seeds. It shows that something can be monumental and therefore speak $ - but I shouldn't assume that its about the artist's financial situation either (think jeff koons and matthew barney) - in this case he saved a town whose porcelain industry was in harm's way. Also, completely aside from the money facts, it sounds as if the experience of the piece had its own weight in addition to it being grandiose. It was a personal, quieter corporeal experience tied to the social and political nature of China and the west. like.
From the Whitney site:
