Free at last, free at last.....
Ai Wei Wei and authorities kiss and make up?
Not quite.
Although released from detention by Chinese authorities yesterday, Ai Wei Wei's whereabouts remains a mystery.
No one has seen him, reports Beijing-based contemporary artist and lecturer Alessandro Rolandi.
What does this mean for those Chinese artists who, before 3 April and Wei Wei's arrest, had sharpened the edges of their art to provoke political change or thought?
The short-term legacy of Wei Wei's sequestration is censorship, according to Rolandi.
Works perceived as political or sexual (what remains?) are strictly censored.
I asked Rolandi how censors do their job.
"As for censorship, I just heard they go into galleries when they receive communication about a show and check the works before they are going to be hanged to the walls, quite simple," he says.
"So Ai Wei Wei is free (Nobody has seen him yet, though.) and ready to take all the honours of the western world of art for the next couple of years.
"Being here a longtime and liking the absurd, I wonder if it was just a Chinese plan to create the most famous artist in the world.....but don't mind me," muses Rolandi.
Wei Wei's reprieve from suppression and repression appears selective.
The official Chinese news agency spun the artist's release as a gesture of appreciation for Ai Wei Wei's good conduct and cooperation in "confessing" his sins against the state.
"My thought is: If he goes free and Liu Xiaobo doesn't, it means we live totally in the society of media and showbiz; if they both go free, China surprises us all," opines Rolandi, a veteran of the Beijing contemporary arts scene since 2003.
In the meantime, there is a great revival launched by Bo Xilai and Xi Jingpin (next leader) of RED SONGS all over the country, starting from Chongqing City (the Kingdom of Bo Xilai), Rolandi reports.
"As always, you will never understand what the Chinese are doing."
Ai Weiwei & Tienanmen: Girl with mask stages silent protest in Beijing
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| Alessandro Rolandi |
“The Girl with the Mask” by Alessandro Rolandi
"There is no violence; there is a moment of strangement in which a whole context is transformed, a whole situation obeying to well-established rules is suddenly made to look random and illogical." Alessandro Rolandi
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| "Be Have!" Alessandro Rolandi´s wall-writing with lights in Beijing, titled: "Post-It" |
Beijing, Friday, 3 June 2011
It's around 8.45 a.m. I'm on the way to take my kid to school.
I'm driving along the Airport Expressway in the direction of Dashanzi, when I can testify seeing a wonderful act of courage, artistic bliss and political meaning.
In the middle of the highway a slim, tall girl dressed with a tulle miniskirt, high heels and a white pirate-like shirt.
She walks slowly between the cars.
She wears a purple mask, one of those you see in the Venice Carnival.
The vision she creates seems to come out from a movie, something between Visconti's Decadence and the Kubrick of Eyes Wide Shut.
In fact, she is real, and she is slowing down the cars with choreographed gestures of her hands while walking in the opposite direction to the traffic.
The traffic is the one of Beijing early morning, thousands of cars queuing up diligently; inside of them, thousands of individuals going to work and pursuing their Chinese Dream.
| 4 June 1989 The small man halting tanks |
By the time I pull over in a safe place and check again it is over.
She is not there anymore. I strongly hope she got away with it.
This kind of gesture is representative of the power of art when applied with subtlessness, sensitivity and unconditioned freedom.
There is no violence; there is a moment of strangement in which a whole context is transformed, a whole situation obeying to well-established rules is suddenly made to look random and illogical.
A mysterious gesture, simple and out of context, makes those solid rules become fragile and arbitrary; it opens an empty space where we stand silent, realizing that everything is possible, that normality is held together only by our own acceptance and nothing else.
The cars, the huge highway´s lanes, the hot concrete, the metal, the sense of urge and necessity for all this is put on standby.
Even the noise seems to calm down a bit.
All these metal animals running in their concrete jungle slow down and behave to the hand of a strange tamer appeaing from nowhere.
In 1974, Philippe Petit walked on a wire suspended between the Twin Towers in New York shortly after completion.
He walked back and forth for 45 minutes before giving himself over to authorities.
He kept the whole of New York at a stand-still, contemplating the beauty and the fragility of his gesture.
When asked why he did this, he answered, "I don't know, it's about the mystery." You can watch this in the film-documentary MAN ON THE WIRE.
The girl with the mask today knows very well why she did this.
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| Like an apparition she appeared in traffic, wove her protest and vanished. (Photograph by Stefan van Drake) |
She did this the day before the 22nd anniversary of the events of 1989 in Tien An Men Square.
I'm sure seeing her the Beijingners must have felt weird, then probably even amused for awhile.
They will have something to talk about today during their lunch breaks.
Few of them, though, together with some foreigners and other people maybe watching from the windows of their buildings, will experience also an image coming back from their subconscious.
A little man with a plastic bag standing alone in front of a tank.
He moved a few steps anytime the tank tried to pass at his side; he held the whole column of tanks still--one man, one human being who just had had enough of what was happening.
The girl with the mask is not alone and desperate. She is not acting out her last chance. She is sending a bold and symbolic message.
China has a long tradition of romantic outlaws´ storytelling.
Bandits have been celebrated and praised for their courage and the importance of their role in shaping history.
The girl with the mask is the trickster-artist, the Robin Hood coming out of the forest to awake the villagers and mock the arrogant princes; she is not alone, more will come, appear, hit and disappear.
The Girl with the Mask, by Alessandro Rolandi
Alessandro Rolandi, age 40, is artist in residence at Harrow International School, Beijing since 2003, teaching art and experimental theatre. He has taught or lectured in eight schools, including Institut d´Edudes de Paris. He is also a film maker, actor, theatre director and author. Rolandi, born in Pavia, Italy, has staged 12 solo exhibitions and participated in 24 group shows. He is an occasional ArtTraveler contributing writer.
His mission:
"I observe, borrow, change and document reality to create possibilities that challenge our current socio-political structures and point out the effects they have on our daily life and on our scheme of thought."
"I observe, borrow, change and document reality to create possibilities that challenge our current socio-political structures and point out the effects they have on our daily life and on our scheme of thought."
Rock on and practice peace and love.
Stefan, the ArtTraveler™
Check out a sculpture or mosaics workshop or walking tour in our beautiful mountains. See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.
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| "Sierra Sky," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009) |
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