Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist and activist who is outspoken against the Chinese government. As a result, he has been arrested and his rights to free speech, travel, and privacy have been revoked. He uses his artwork to express his political views, such as a photo of him dropping an ancient Chinese vase and recoloring ceramic vases as a symbolic rejection of traditional Chinese culture and values.

1. Art 21
Shina Sawhney

2. AI WeiWei
Al WeiWei is a human rights
activist. He is outspoken against
the Chinese Government and
since has been arrested. With his
release, his rights of public
speech were revoked, his ability
to travel abroad, and he is also
subject to government
surveillance. He uses his artwork
as a means to display his political
views.

3. Ai WeiWei
In this artwork, Ai WeiWei is photographed dropping a Ancient Chinese vase.
There are ceramic vases in front of him he recolored. Ai has always had an issue with
the way traditional Chinese way of political/culture, so his breaking of the traditional
vase and remaking of the new is symbolic of his departing with traditional
Chinese ways and instilling his own new ones.

4. My Response
I used duck tape to symbolize
things we feel bound to, or trapped by.
It can be thoughts, values, traditions,
routines, or cycles,anything that we feel
restricts our freedom.
I used the progression of someone breaking
free from the tape to freedom symbolically
as someone breaking free from the things
they feel hold them back in life.

5. Louise Bourgeois
Louise Bourgeois uses the emotional
trauma she suffered in her childhood as the fuel
for her artwork. One concept which repeats itself
in her work is the spiral. She goes by “I do, I undo,
and I redo.” This is her way of recreating “the happy
ending” to her childhood through the spiral as a means
to go back.

6. My Response
I thought about Louise Bourgeois’s
past, and her unhappy childhood.
I used her spirals to represent
people and ideas.
There is a girl at the bottom who is
upset, and she thinks about
winding back time. When she does
that spirals into another thought
of her as a child, then that child
spirals into a thought of seeing her
parents happy as one in a
relationship.

7. Oliver Herring
There is a sense of being free,
adventurous, and whimsical in
Oliver Herrings artwork. He describes
some of his work as “unordinary.”

8. My Response
In response to Oliver Herrings work, I created
a whimsical, fun photograph of my niece. I cut out
random outrageous Pieces from magazines and
placed them on the picture of her.