A major exhibition from one of most important Chinese contemporary artists is presented for the first time in Brazil, in São Paulo at the Museum of Image and Sound. Ai Weiwei has been considered by specialist art magazines to be the most influential artist in the world because of his use of art as a platform for his deeper political messages.
The first impression one has when visiting the exhibition is strange for our culture. Visitors must take off their shoes or use a protector to enter the first gallery area, this symbolises the oriental culture, which believes you must cleanse the dirt before entering the home.
Many important works by Weiwei are here on display. The entire museum is devoted to the exhibition titled Interlacing It . This show is one of the most important foreign productions that Brazil has offered this year. Included in the show are photos from the serie Study of Perspective, conceived in 1995 in Beijing. They depict the artist making an obscene gesture with the middle finger extended in front iconic places such as Tiananmen square, Tour Eifel and many others. The images relate to chinese censured life, WeiWei invites us to break our about pre-conceptions, lives, laws and encourage us to violate some.
In the first room at the museum you can find lots of pictures from when the artist lived in New York called New York Photographs series, with his friends and other chinese artists. There are also some important pictures when Weiwei became know, such as, series Beijing Airport Terminal 3 and Bird’s Nest, both have contructions for Olimpic Games in 2008 which happened in Beijing radically transforming the scenery with Weiweis design.
What causes fright and chills is the series Shanghai Studio that show us the ‘process of construction and destruction of an art studio and culture around Shanghai’, this photos show us a other perspective from local culture where the territories belongs to government.
All the exhibition is amazing and is a must for anyone visiting São Paulo until 14 march in Museum of Image and Sound – MIS-SP (adressAvenida Europa, 158, Jardim Europa, São Paulo – Brazil. www.mis-sp.org.br)
Words/Photo: Douglas Negrisolli / MIS. © ArtLyst 2013