HUFFINGTON
09.30.12
THE DISRUPTOR
“That makes my life become more
and more frustrated.”
WHERE IS AI WEIWEI?
This is what comes with the
territory of making a few arguments: 81 days in jail, travel
restrictions, around the clock
police monitoring, surveillance
cameras, phone tapping, censorship, no Twitter use or interviews for a year, and accusations
of pornography and tax fraud.
One year and four months later, Ai is fully back in the Twitter
and interview-giving business.
The police aren’t always around
and surveillance in general is
“much less.” His phone is still
tapped, 15 cameras keep watch
on him, his artwork faces some
censorship and those porn accusations are lurking out there,
waiting to be levied.
“If getting back half of my
freedom means I’m free, then
I’m a free person,” Ai told
Reuters in June.
Ai doesn’t hold anything
against the police, many of whom
he has good relationships with.
“That’s their job, I perfectly understand. If they tell me sincerely,
‘Weiwei, this will bring me big
trouble,’ I will say, ‘OK, I will con-
“I OFTEN
FORGET I’M AN ARTIST.
I FEEL SORRY ABOUT IT,
BUT IF ONLY CERTAIN
KINDS OF MY ACTIVITIES
CAN BE CALLED ART,
THEN I’M NOT AN ARTIST.”
sider it.’” He’s even offered them
jobs off the books. “I try to invite
them to work in my office, and if
they allow me to travel, I will tell
people, ‘these are my assistants,’”
Ai says, pleased with the idea.
“They’ll see who I meet and what
we talk about. They believe me,
but they say, ‘our structure will
never allow this to happen.’”
As for his art these days, Ai is
cautious about how he describes
it. The Hirshhorn exhibit features
new works that continue to take
from his most public headbutts
with the government. One massive installation is constructed
from steel reinforcement bars
he collected from the rubble of
school collapses in the 2008
Sichuan earthquake. Another,