Lisson Gallery presents a major survey show of work by Ai Weiwei to be held across both Bell Street spaces, London. The broad selection of key works from the past six years was agreed with the artist at the beginning of 2011.
May 13th - July 16th 2011
Ai Weiwei is one of the leading cultural figures of his generation and consistently displays great courage in placing himself at risk to affect social change through his art. He serves as an example for legitimate social criticism and free expression both in China and internationally.
Highlights of the 13 works in the exhibition include Colored Vases (2010, 2009), groupings of Han Dynasty pots (from 200DC-220AD) covered in industrial paint. An expert in ancient Chinese ceramics, Ai’s continued desecration of individual vases can be seen as political comment on the organized destruction of cultural and historical values that took place during the Cultural Revolution, when everything old was replaced by the new. In questioning value and defacing tradition Ai is confronting the legacy of past generations with the needs and experiences of the present. At the same time he gives a new perspective on contemporary commodifications.
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Tara Donovan is an American artist who employs everyday objects to create large-scale sculptures and prints that take on a life and light of their own. Here Donovan has ripped and stacked Tarpaper.
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Cyprien Gaillard repeatedly explores the absurd aspects of dystopic architectures and their remaining ruins through such strategies as dilapidation, destruction, demolition, preservation, conservation and reconstruction of architecture. In doing so he always departs from the process itself.
For his exhibition at KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin Gaillard has created a new, large-scale piece. Similarly to the relocation of the Pergamon Altar, 72,000 bottles of beer of the brand “Efes” have been transported from Turkey to Germany. The cardboard boxes filled with bottles form the even steps of the pyramid. By using the monument – by climbing the sculpture and drinking the beer – its destruction is already initiated.
