ai weiwei: sunflower seeds at the tate modern‘sunflower seeds’ by ai weiwei at the tate modern images courtesy the tate modern © ai weiwei
ai weiwei: sunflower seeds turbine hall, tate modern bankside, london now until 2 may 2011
as the eleventh commission in the tate modern‘s unilever series, chinese conceptual artist ai weiwei has filled the museum’s turbine hall with millions of life-sized sunflower seed husks made out of porcelain. the collective effort of a number of specialists from jingdezhen, china, the hand-crafted seeds were individually formed and painted. the installation encourages visitors to touch and walk on the carpet of tiny replicates.
ai weiwei has manipulated the traditional methods of crafting porcelain, which has historically been considered to be one of china’s most prized exports, to explore the ‘made in china’ phenomenon and the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today.
images courtesy the tate modern © ai weiwei
aerial view image courtesy the guardian photographer: david levene
images courtesy the tate modern © ai weiwei
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more commentsWhat a waste of time and energy.
everyone can make thousands of installations like this with lots of literature and hundreds of slaves. this is just meanigless.
seeds, condoms, bottles, this has allready been done.
Art from the past
This is awful. What a waste of time.
can you still go and see them?
[url=http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE69E1WU20101015?feedType=nl&feedName=ukoddlyenough] (Reuters) [/url]
– Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s installation in the giant turbine hall of London’s Tate Modern gallery
has been closed off to the public over concerns that it is causing dangerous levels of dust.
“Sunflower Seeds,” part of the high-profile Unilever Series which invites artists to fill the cavernous space
each year, consists of some 100 million individually made porcelain seed replicas, and visitors were invited
to walk across them.
“Although porcelain is very robust, the enthusiastic interaction of visitors has resulted in a greater than expected
level of dust in the Turbine Hall,” Tate said in a statement.
“Tate has been advised that this dust could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time.
In consequence, Tate, in consultation with the artist, has decided not to allow visitors to walk across the sculpture.”
The work has been seen as Ai’s commentary on living in a densely populated country where individualism can be lost,
as well as his interpretation of the inter-connectedness of millions of people over the internet.
Even before the dust debacle, there were concerns that some members of the public were stealing the seed replicas.
art is in contradiction with itself and cannot be appreciated by everyone if it seeks for truth.
ok, ok. till there will be slaves working for nothing ( and shut up!) there will be kind of art like that. ok thanks Tate.
This situation reminds me of the childrens story ‘the Emperors clothes’ where is the ‘ART’ ?? – this would be just a very cruel and expensive joke if were not so blatently stupid and wasteful. Shame on the so called artist. Shame on the Tate. Unbelievable stupid!!
All over now. The public are banned from walking amongst the seeds. The dust kicked up was thick and pretty choking.