The tussle between the controversial Chinese artist Ai
Weiwei and the Danish toy major Lego has now been blown into an international
debate. Ai placed an order with the Lego for a massive amount of plastic
building blocks in order to make his works of art for a forthcoming show with
Late Andy Warhol in Melbourne, Australia. And the company refused to take the
order saying that their products could not be used for any political purpose. Ai
retaliated with an instagram post with the Lego blocks being flushed down in a
commode, signed R.Mutt 2015; a direct visual quotation or reference to Duchamp’s
famous readymade, Fountain, introduced into the art debates in 1917. Almost
after a century, Duchamp comes back to haunt the world of art through Ai’s
reactions on Lego’s official stance.
Two things are evident here. One, Ai is the most political
therefore controversial artist in the world today, overshadowing the fame of
Anish Kapoor, Jeff Coons and Damien Hirst. Two, the company itself has declared
that their products could not be used for ‘political’ purpose. Not in the
history of art ever before such a denial has come up from a manufacturer
against an artist who has directly approached the company for their products.
It is not that Ai has not used their products before. In 2014, in his Alcatraz
Island exhibition in the US titled ‘Trace’ Ai had created 176 portraits of
people from around thirty three countries, who had either imprisoned or exiled
themselves due to their political stance or non-conformity with their
respective governments. Like jigsaws, Ai used the building blocks to make their
portraits including that of the one and only Nelson Mandela, as a recuperative
or redemptive or even commemorative gesture of his own incarceration for 80
days in Chinese prison in 2011, during which his studio was bulldozed by the
authorities.
(Portrait done by Ai using Lego blocks)
Ai has never been out of news. He was in the news last month
when his retrospective exhibition was opened in Royal Academy of Arts in London
on 17th October 2015. This blockbuster show had changed the
perspective of many art critics including the staunch critics of his personality
and personal and political attitudes. He had also joined Anish Kapoor in a
public procession with the London based artists, demanding shelter for the
refugees from West Asia and East Europe in the rich and flourishing European
countries. Hanging a grey coarse blanket over his shoulders, reminding the
people and authorities of the primal man’s exodus from one hostile clime to a
better one, and also reminding the greatest redeemer of history, Moses, who had
asked the sea to part and succeeded in it, Ai walked in his all rawness and
simplicity, attracting the world media. Today, there is only one artist in the
world, whose stance on his art, life and also the politics not only of his own
country, China but also of all other countries makes sense and demands policy
changes. The Lego controversy should be seen and discussed in this light.
The moment this controversy broke out in the internet space
via instagram on 24th October 2015, the world picked it up as a
developing story and the world responded to it with the same verve that they
would respond to a war crisis or another humanitarian issue, similar to the one
evoked by Aylan Kurd’s dead body. Little kids came up in social media with
their photographs offering Ai with their personal collection of Lego bricks.
Today, Ai has said that the world’s response to this crisis is so immense and
he is flooded with queries about the drop points of their Lego bricks. He told
the world media that he would soon decide setting up such collection points. It
is one of the most prestigious moments in world art history where an artist
could wake the conscience of the world up by not going down to the diktats of a
private corporate. The gesture of the artist as well as the gesture of the
world is so important and the market leaders should wake up and take a note of
it, so are the capitalist world leaders. The lesson is simple but strong and
evocative. If people think and if they decide to boycott products then
definitely they can bring the shutters down for a company. If people decide to
bring the products of a company and flood the second hand market with their
product, then also they could destroy a company.
(Instagram posting of Ai)
This is people’s power. But today, the power of the people
is woken up by an artist like Ai. He stands with Mahatma Gandhi who had asked
the people to boycott foreign clothes. Here Ai does not ask for a boycott of
Lego products. He shows his mid finger to the company literally and
metaphorically. The world has responded by flooding him with Lego products. Now
Lego could only resort to a legal route; that too would be to curtail artistic
freedom. Lego, if at all it goes to the legal way, could only say that Ai
should not use their product in his works. That is legible because Lego
products are patented. But Ai could prop up another company to defeat Lego on
ethical ground and take away all the Lego patrons to the new company. Ai with
his avuncular presence has taken the kids and youth from all over the world to his
side. In one of his videos we see two girls chancing upon him in a public place
and take pictures with him. But while saying bye to each other, one of the
girls tells him point blank: You look ordinary. Yes, that is the power of the
common man. Ai has proved that common artist with uncommon ways of thinking too
has that power of a populace.
Lego has its own reasons to deny the placing of Ai’s order.
Lego as a company has been involved in several large scale projects,
entertainment cities, parks and zones in China. The company has got contracts
with the government of China. Ai is a ‘Ganatatra Shatru’. He is a political
enemy as far as the government of China is concerned. He trashes the
economically flourishing country image of China before the world. Chinese
government could not stop him from being vocal despite his incarceration,
confiscation of passport, movement restrictions and so on. People all over the
world suddenly seem to have woken up to this artist who reminds them of the
Oriental Gurus like Confucius and Lao Tzu. People recognize the image of Che,
Gandhiji, Mandela, Andy Warhol and today Ai Wei Wei. In the world of
corporatism it is easy to remember the faces of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates as
their products and ideas are in our hands. But they too will fade when new
ideas and new products take over the market. But people Ai, Warhol, Che, Gandhiji,
Mandela and so on do not fade because they happen only once in history. Second
time if they happen they happen as Boses and Hirsts.
(He Xie, porcelain crabs suggesting censorship by Ai Weiwei 2010)
We have to think of Ai in our times mainly because our country
is going through a crisis; moral and political. We are apparently forced to
believe that we live in a world of freedom. We have freedom of choice and
freedom of thought. The fact is our freedom of choice is limited to the available
even if the available has a vast range on display. Our freedom of thinking is
also limited because our nourishment to free thinking is being controlled
through various mediums. We live in an oppressive state where artists are
forced to think several times whether the skin of their works even if it is in
bronze or wood, need an addition cover of clothes in order to satisfy the right
wing fundamentalists of all sorts. Liberals too have fundamentalists in them.
Our writers are asked to shut up. They commit suicide as authors. Then they
continue to live as witnesses whose tongue and limbs are chopped off. Our
youngsters are asked to keep off from each other. We are no longer allowed to
hold hands or kiss. Anything that liberates is clipped and caged. And this
happens even before we realise that it has happened. Hence, we need to
recognize Ai’s demand for justice and creative freedom. We need to respond the
way world has responded. I have never been to China. I have never seen Ai or
his works in real. But I do write about Ai because when I write about him I write
about freedom.
Refusing working materials to an
artist is like refusing food to a hungry human being. It is feudalism and
patriarchy. It is fascism and despotism rolled into one. Refusing working materials
to the artist is like refusing someone the freedom to walk in a public road only
because he or she belongs to a particular caste or religion. Refusing working material
to an artist is like refusing a sky and greenery to a woman and forcing her to
kitchen. Refusing working materials to an artist is like chopping off the
tongue of a singer. Refusing working materials to an artist is like imprisoning
a bard for singing songs. Refusing working materials to an artist is like
bombing a school full of innocent kids. Refusing working materials to an artist
is like burning down a library. Refusing working materials to an artist is like
beheading a girl for being beautiful. Ai Weiwei is an artist who is refused his
working materials. Artists work even if they are imprisoned. Upon asking him
about his possible imprisonment and his need to create art Picasso has famously
said that he would paint the walls of the jail with his tongue. Ai has found
his way; tongue or otherwise. But we need to learn a lot from him and stand by
him.
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