WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.540 Welcome back to The Deep Dive, the place where 00:00:02.540 --> 00:00:04.860 we turn massive amounts of complicated source 00:00:04.860 --> 00:00:08.279 material into sharp, clear conversational knowledge. 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:13.380 Today, we are taking on a massive figure, maybe 00:00:13.380 --> 00:00:16.379 the world's most famous living dissident artist, 00:00:16.679 --> 00:00:19.519 A .I. Wai Wai. That's almost an understatement, 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:21.179 isn't it? It really is. When you look at the 00:00:21.179 --> 00:00:23.620 collected sources, I mean, the biographies, the 00:00:23.620 --> 00:00:26.239 documentation of all his controversies, the catalogs 00:00:26.239 --> 00:00:28.480 of his art, you realize... You're not just looking 00:00:28.480 --> 00:00:30.920 at an artist. No. You're looking at a political 00:00:30.920 --> 00:00:34.439 timeline, a timeline expressed through sculpture, 00:00:34.600 --> 00:00:36.539 through performance, through architecture. And 00:00:36.539 --> 00:00:37.880 that's our mission for you today. We're going 00:00:37.880 --> 00:00:40.039 to try and really understand the scale of his 00:00:40.039 --> 00:00:43.500 impact and the intense, continuous conflict that 00:00:43.500 --> 00:00:46.280 has defined his entire career. We've synthesized 00:00:46.280 --> 00:00:49.200 this huge stack of documentation into a single 00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:51.780 narrative. And we have to jump right into the 00:00:51.780 --> 00:00:54.979 core tension because AI Huawei is fundamentally 00:00:54.979 --> 00:00:57.840 a paradox. How so? Well, to the outside world, 00:00:57.979 --> 00:00:59.939 he's a global brand. He's this internationally 00:00:59.939 --> 00:01:02.619 recognized architect and artist. He was the artistic 00:01:02.619 --> 00:01:05.379 consultant for the iconic Beijing National Stadium. 00:01:05.400 --> 00:01:08.519 The bird's nest for the 2008 Olympics. Exactly. 00:01:08.659 --> 00:01:11.959 A symbol of China's global arrival designed with 00:01:11.959 --> 00:01:14.439 his expertise. But, and this is the paradox, 00:01:14.719 --> 00:01:17.219 his entire public career since then, especially 00:01:17.219 --> 00:01:19.719 since that stadium opened, has been this deliberate. 00:01:20.310 --> 00:01:23.390 often really perilous and always very public 00:01:23.390 --> 00:01:26.489 confrontation with the exact same chinese government 00:01:26.489 --> 00:01:29.709 that commissioned his work he chose radical individualism 00:01:29.709 --> 00:01:32.870 over state patronage every single time. Yeah, 00:01:32.969 --> 00:01:36.209 his life is just a continuous argument with authority. 00:01:36.549 --> 00:01:39.829 But I think to really grasp why he operates this 00:01:39.829 --> 00:01:42.390 way, we can't start with the artist. No, you 00:01:42.390 --> 00:01:44.129 have to start with the son of the exile. Okay, 00:01:44.189 --> 00:01:45.769 so let's unpack that. Let's trace this right 00:01:45.769 --> 00:01:47.430 from the beginning, because his political life 00:01:47.430 --> 00:01:49.230 wasn't a choice he made as an adult. It was, 00:01:49.230 --> 00:01:52.189 in a very real sense, inherited. It was. A .I. 00:01:52.189 --> 00:01:54.930 Weiwei is the son of the renowned Chinese poet 00:01:54.930 --> 00:01:57.310 A. King. And that lineage is everything. It's 00:01:57.310 --> 00:01:59.569 the whole story. A. King was one of China's most 00:01:59.569 --> 00:02:01.930 celebrated poets, but he was denounced during 00:02:01.930 --> 00:02:06.109 the 1957 anti -rightist movement. And that denunciation 00:02:06.109 --> 00:02:08.509 wasn't just, you know, a political setback. It 00:02:08.509 --> 00:02:11.810 was an existential blow. And it immediately determined 00:02:11.810 --> 00:02:13.830 the course of his young son's life. Oh, completely. 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:16.710 The sources are really clear on this. In 1958, 00:02:17.030 --> 00:02:19.550 and you have to remember, Ai Weiwei is barely 00:02:19.550 --> 00:02:21.889 a year old at this point. Just a baby. Exactly. 00:02:21.990 --> 00:02:24.289 Just a baby. And his whole family is exiled. 00:02:24.560 --> 00:02:26.240 They're sent to a labor camp at a place called 00:02:26.240 --> 00:02:28.840 Baitawang in Heilongjiang Province. And then 00:02:28.840 --> 00:02:32.439 a few years later, in 1961, they were moved even 00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:34.919 farther away. Right, to Xinjiang Province in 00:02:34.919 --> 00:02:37.280 the remote northwest. Think about the conditions. 00:02:37.379 --> 00:02:41.219 They lived under this extreme duress for 16 years. 00:02:41.400 --> 00:02:45.080 16 years. All the way up to 1976. So this wasn't 00:02:45.080 --> 00:02:47.599 some brief period of hardship. This was his entire 00:02:47.599 --> 00:02:50.819 childhood, his adolescence. Spent in physical 00:02:50.819 --> 00:02:53.699 and political isolation, always under the shadow 00:02:53.699 --> 00:02:56.120 of his father being an enemy of the state. It's 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:58.240 a childhood that you can see informs his entire 00:02:58.240 --> 00:03:00.719 worldview. He didn't have to read about political 00:03:00.719 --> 00:03:03.099 oppression in a book. He lived it. He lived it. 00:03:03.180 --> 00:03:05.780 And he reflected on this, saying the exile was 00:03:05.780 --> 00:03:09.020 the whirlpool that swallowed up my father, upended 00:03:09.020 --> 00:03:11.539 my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry 00:03:11.539 --> 00:03:15.180 to this day. That phrase, a mark on me, that 00:03:15.180 --> 00:03:17.500 feeling of being marked, of carrying this burden 00:03:17.500 --> 00:03:20.759 of state persecution. That's the psychological 00:03:20.759 --> 00:03:23.120 engine for all the defiance that comes later. 00:03:23.259 --> 00:03:25.259 That's a really crucial distinction. When he 00:03:25.259 --> 00:03:27.979 criticizes authority later on, it's not some 00:03:27.979 --> 00:03:30.919 abstract performance art. No, it's rooted in 00:03:30.919 --> 00:03:33.139 the memory of his family just trying to survive 00:03:33.139 --> 00:03:36.439 in those labor camps. So after the Cultural Revolution 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:39.180 finally ends, the family is allowed to return 00:03:39.180 --> 00:03:42.120 to Beijing. And he starts his formal studies 00:03:42.120 --> 00:03:45.419 as an artist in 1978. He enrolls in the Beijing 00:03:45.419 --> 00:03:48.400 Film Academy, studying animation. And almost 00:03:48.400 --> 00:03:50.379 immediately, he's involved in dissent again. 00:03:50.500 --> 00:03:53.620 This time, it's artistic dissent. He co -founds 00:03:53.620 --> 00:03:56.379 this early avant -garde art group called The 00:03:56.379 --> 00:03:59.139 Stars. And what were they about? They were just 00:03:59.139 --> 00:04:01.319 pushing back, pushing against the very rigid, 00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:04.000 state -approved artistic norms of the time. They 00:04:04.000 --> 00:04:06.900 were experimenting with more expressive, individualistic 00:04:06.900 --> 00:04:08.460 styles. They were a small group, but they were 00:04:08.460 --> 00:04:10.949 pioneers. The Stars group, even though they disbanded 00:04:10.949 --> 00:04:12.990 pretty quickly in 83, I think. Yeah, that's right. 00:04:13.129 --> 00:04:15.870 It gave him his first taste of organizing, of 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:17.769 asserting a kind of counter -narrative through 00:04:17.769 --> 00:04:20.430 art. Right. But the next stage for him was about 00:04:20.430 --> 00:04:22.629 finding his own aesthetic language. And he had 00:04:22.629 --> 00:04:25.250 to go global for that. So in 1981, he's part 00:04:25.250 --> 00:04:27.750 of the very first generation of students allowed 00:04:27.750 --> 00:04:30.230 to study abroad after the reforms in the 80s. 00:04:30.250 --> 00:04:32.970 And he goes to the United States, to New York 00:04:32.970 --> 00:04:35.709 City, where he stays until 1993. And his New 00:04:35.709 --> 00:04:39.439 York years are this, this classic story. It's 00:04:39.439 --> 00:04:42.180 the immigrant hustle meeting an artistic awakening. 00:04:42.399 --> 00:04:44.439 Right. He didn't just glide into a fancy art 00:04:44.439 --> 00:04:46.939 school. He studied English at UPenn and Berkeley. 00:04:47.180 --> 00:04:49.480 He dropped out of Parsons. He made a living drawing 00:04:49.480 --> 00:04:52.220 street portraits, taking odd jobs. The sources 00:04:52.220 --> 00:04:54.259 mention he was also at the Art Students League 00:04:54.259 --> 00:04:56.600 of New York for a few years, just soaking it 00:04:56.600 --> 00:04:59.000 all in. So his practical education was in survival. 00:04:59.379 --> 00:05:02.540 Yes, but his artistic education was purely conceptual. 00:05:02.839 --> 00:05:05.040 He was just absorbing the entire East Village 00:05:05.040 --> 00:05:08.279 art scene. And that exposed him directly to these 00:05:08.279 --> 00:05:11.060 seminal figures who were redefining what art 00:05:11.060 --> 00:05:13.879 could even be. Marcel Duchamp. The master of 00:05:13.879 --> 00:05:16.259 the ready -made. Andy Warhol, with his obsession 00:05:16.259 --> 00:05:19.199 with celebrity and mass production. Jasper Johns. 00:05:19.459 --> 00:05:22.120 And it was here, through seeing their work, that 00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:24.480 he started his own conceptual practice using 00:05:24.480 --> 00:05:27.149 these ready -made objects. taking everyday things, 00:05:27.310 --> 00:05:30.050 mundane items, and just recontextualizing them 00:05:30.050 --> 00:05:32.149 to challenge our assumptions about value and 00:05:32.149 --> 00:05:34.589 meaning. This practice, which he learns in the 00:05:34.589 --> 00:05:37.910 U .S., becomes the absolute basis for so many 00:05:37.910 --> 00:05:40.069 of his famous pieces later on in China. It's 00:05:40.069 --> 00:05:42.410 like the perfect training for a political artist. 00:05:42.709 --> 00:05:44.990 It is. Conceptual art is all about intellectual 00:05:44.990 --> 00:05:46.970 commentary, not just making something beautiful. 00:05:47.189 --> 00:05:49.730 But then you get these biographical details that 00:05:49.730 --> 00:05:52.560 are just... They're incredible. Like his connection 00:05:52.560 --> 00:05:54.980 with the beat poet Allen Ginsberg. The story 00:05:54.980 --> 00:05:57.759 of how they met is fantastic. Isn't it? Ginsberg 00:05:57.759 --> 00:06:00.240 reads some poetry about China at an event. And 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:01.779 it turns out he'd actually traveled to China 00:06:01.779 --> 00:06:05.220 years before and met A .Y. Wei's father, A. King. 00:06:05.579 --> 00:06:08.040 It's this profound, almost predestined connection. 00:06:08.420 --> 00:06:11.319 The son of the persecuted Chinese poet meeting 00:06:11.319 --> 00:06:14.060 the radical American poet who actually knew his 00:06:14.060 --> 00:06:16.519 father. It's like it links the literary descent 00:06:16.519 --> 00:06:18.899 of the East and the West. And there's even more 00:06:18.899 --> 00:06:21.060 to his time in the East Village that tells you 00:06:21.060 --> 00:06:24.439 so much about his character. While he was tirelessly 00:06:24.439 --> 00:06:27.540 documenting his surroundings, and that resulted 00:06:27.540 --> 00:06:30.319 in this huge collection called the New York Photographs, 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.860 he was also known for a very, very different 00:06:33.860 --> 00:06:36.939 discipline. Gambling. The gambling. The sources 00:06:36.939 --> 00:06:39.860 are so specific, they call him a top -tier professional 00:06:39.860 --> 00:06:42.279 blackjack player. Frequently visiting Atlantic 00:06:42.279 --> 00:06:44.579 City casinos, when you hear that, it just stops 00:06:44.579 --> 00:06:47.720 you. A major conceptual artist who is also a 00:06:47.720 --> 00:06:49.699 professional gambler. It sounds like a total 00:06:49.699 --> 00:06:52.560 contradiction, but if you look closer, it speaks 00:06:52.560 --> 00:06:55.819 to a very specific set of skills. Skills that 00:06:55.819 --> 00:06:58.199 become absolutely crucial for the dissident he's 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:00.980 about to become. How so? Well, blackjack isn't 00:07:00.980 --> 00:07:03.980 just luck. It requires intense mental discipline, 00:07:04.180 --> 00:07:07.980 focus, pattern recognition, and above all, a 00:07:07.980 --> 00:07:10.519 willingness to take highly calculated risks against 00:07:10.519 --> 00:07:14.240 a very powerful house. The casino. That's a fascinating 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:16.120 connection. You're saying the discipline needed 00:07:16.120 --> 00:07:18.459 to beat the casino is the same discipline you 00:07:18.459 --> 00:07:20.379 need to calculate the risks of confronting an 00:07:20.379 --> 00:07:22.779 authoritarian state. I think so. Absolutely. 00:07:23.139 --> 00:07:25.899 It's about being cool -headed, recognizing the 00:07:25.899 --> 00:07:28.480 statistical likelihood of failure, and still 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:30.800 choosing to place that big bet. So he returns 00:07:30.800 --> 00:07:34.240 to China in 1993 because his father is ill and 00:07:34.240 --> 00:07:37.000 he's carrying this new conceptual vocabulary 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:40.399 and this this risk assessment mentality. And 00:07:40.399 --> 00:07:42.660 back in Beijing, he doesn't rejoin the establishment. 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:45.639 Yeah. Not at all. He helps establish the experimental 00:07:45.639 --> 00:07:48.519 artist's Beijing East Village and immediately 00:07:48.519 --> 00:07:51.560 gets back to pushing boundaries. He co -publishes 00:07:51.560 --> 00:07:53.839 these highly experimental, controversial art 00:07:53.839 --> 00:07:55.680 books like the Black Cover Book and the White 00:07:55.680 --> 00:07:57.779 Cover Book. And this leads him to architecture. 00:07:58.139 --> 00:08:00.519 It does. In 1999, he moves to this fringe area 00:08:00.519 --> 00:08:03.339 called Kaochengdi and he designs and builds his 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:05.399 own studio house. It's his very first architectural 00:08:05.399 --> 00:08:08.839 project. A simple, angular, modern statement. 00:08:09.060 --> 00:08:11.199 And its success prompts him to found his own 00:08:11.199 --> 00:08:14.439 architecture studio, Fake Design, in 2003. And 00:08:14.439 --> 00:08:17.000 that studio is what leads directly to the monumental 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:19.620 project that put him on the global map for anyone 00:08:19.620 --> 00:08:22.240 outside the art world. The Beijing National Stadium. 00:08:22.500 --> 00:08:25.639 The bird's nest for the 2008 Summer Olympics. 00:08:25.899 --> 00:08:28.819 He was brought on as the artistic consultant, 00:08:29.060 --> 00:08:32.299 collaborating with the famous Swiss firm, Herzog 00:08:32.299 --> 00:08:35.500 & de Miron. And his initial motivation? as he 00:08:35.500 --> 00:08:39.080 said it, was simple and purely artistic. He just 00:08:39.080 --> 00:08:43.220 loved design. The stadium was structurally and 00:08:43.220 --> 00:08:45.600 aesthetically groundbreaking, an icon of modern 00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:47.919 architecture. But once that stadium became a 00:08:47.919 --> 00:08:50.960 political symbol, the centerpiece of the government's 00:08:50.960 --> 00:08:54.340 big celebration. His relationship with it just 00:08:54.340 --> 00:08:56.960 shattered. He didn't just distance himself. He 00:08:56.960 --> 00:09:00.059 explicitly and publicly rejected the project 00:09:00.059 --> 00:09:02.879 entirely. He went on a major campaign of rejection, 00:09:03.039 --> 00:09:05.240 didn't he? He did. He refused to be photographed 00:09:05.240 --> 00:09:07.360 with it. He said he had already forgotten about 00:09:07.360 --> 00:09:09.820 it. I mean that's a huge statement from a primary 00:09:09.820 --> 00:09:12.299 collaborator. The sources quote him calling the 00:09:12.299 --> 00:09:15.580 stadium part of a pretend smile of bad taste. 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:18.159 He felt the government was misusing the architecture 00:09:18.159 --> 00:09:21.059 for pure propaganda. And he refused to be associated 00:09:21.059 --> 00:09:23.159 with that political messaging, even though it 00:09:23.159 --> 00:09:25.139 was arguably the biggest architectural commission 00:09:25.139 --> 00:09:27.779 of his life. He even lashed out at others involved, 00:09:28.080 --> 00:09:30.559 saying they shamelessly abused their profession. 00:09:31.129 --> 00:09:33.190 Right. For failing to make a moral judgment about 00:09:33.190 --> 00:09:36.210 the event's political context. So the stadium, 00:09:36.350 --> 00:09:38.570 which he helped create to be a symbol of Chinese 00:09:38.570 --> 00:09:42.149 modernity, became his first major act of dissidence 00:09:42.149 --> 00:09:44.970 against state cooptation. It really set the stage 00:09:44.970 --> 00:09:47.110 for everything that followed. OK, so let's move 00:09:47.110 --> 00:09:49.730 into part two then. This is the shift from being 00:09:49.730 --> 00:09:52.309 a critical artist to becoming a full blown digital 00:09:52.309 --> 00:09:55.289 dissident and investigative activist. He takes 00:09:55.289 --> 00:09:56.950 that moral stand on the bird's nest and then 00:09:56.950 --> 00:10:01.049 he just he escalates it. drastically using the 00:10:01.049 --> 00:10:02.889 internet. And this transformation really kicks 00:10:02.889 --> 00:10:06.490 off in 2005. AI was invited to start a blog on 00:10:06.490 --> 00:10:08.509 Sina Weibo. Which was China's biggest internet 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:10.990 platform at the time. A massive platform. And 00:10:10.990 --> 00:10:12.710 he saw it as an opportunity and he immediately 00:10:12.710 --> 00:10:15.409 utilized it as a weapon. For four intense years, 00:10:15.570 --> 00:10:18.429 the sources describe it as a steady stream of 00:10:18.429 --> 00:10:20.970 scathing social commentary, criticism of government 00:10:20.970 --> 00:10:23.389 policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and 00:10:23.389 --> 00:10:25.669 autobiographical writings. It was just relentless. 00:10:26.029 --> 00:10:28.490 It was personal and it was profoundly political. 00:10:28.919 --> 00:10:30.960 He was blurring the line between his artistic 00:10:30.960 --> 00:10:33.500 practice and his public life in a way that, you 00:10:33.500 --> 00:10:35.519 know, very few other global figures were doing 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:37.740 at that time. And the art world noticed this 00:10:37.740 --> 00:10:40.860 immediately. They did. Dale Isager of Complex 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:44.120 Magazine made this incredibly bold claim, ranking 00:10:44.120 --> 00:10:47.100 AI's blogging as the fourth greatest work of 00:10:47.100 --> 00:10:49.419 performance art ever. The fourth greatest ever. 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:51.899 What was the argument? The argument was that 00:10:51.899 --> 00:10:54.000 he used the most prevalent mass medium of our 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.320 time, the web, to create something full and tangible, 00:10:57.460 --> 00:10:59.879 rather than just a symbolic representation of 00:10:59.879 --> 00:11:03.320 his critique. His life, online, was the art. 00:11:03.460 --> 00:11:05.779 Of course, that kind of prolific, high -profile 00:11:05.779 --> 00:11:08.120 criticism could never survive on a censored platform. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:10.960 No. His sign -up blog was shut down on May 28, 00:11:11.139 --> 00:11:14.710 2009. But he just migrated. He became a prolific 00:11:14.710 --> 00:11:16.830 user of Twitter, writing almost exclusively in 00:11:16.830 --> 00:11:19.269 Chinese. Sources suggest he was spending at least 00:11:19.269 --> 00:11:21.730 eight hours a day online. Just mastering these 00:11:21.730 --> 00:11:23.990 global platforms to completely bypass domestic 00:11:23.990 --> 00:11:26.960 censorship. And his mastery of those platforms 00:11:26.960 --> 00:11:29.440 meant that when the key confrontation arrived, 00:11:29.840 --> 00:11:32.279 he had all the tools he needed to turn it into 00:11:32.279 --> 00:11:35.019 an organized political movement. And that confrontation 00:11:35.019 --> 00:11:37.919 was the devastating Sichuan earthquake in 2008. 00:11:38.279 --> 00:11:42.000 A catastrophic event, an 8 .0 magnitude earthquake 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:45.940 on May 12th. But the tragedy was compounded by 00:11:45.940 --> 00:11:49.000 the corruption it laid bare. Over 5 ,000 student 00:11:49.000 --> 00:11:51.769 casualties. Largely because the school buildings 00:11:51.769 --> 00:11:54.610 just collapsed instantly. The infamous Tofu Dreg 00:11:54.610 --> 00:11:58.230 schools, built with substandard materials. And 00:11:58.230 --> 00:12:00.289 this failure of state infrastructure, combined 00:12:00.289 --> 00:12:02.870 with what the government did next, was the ultimate 00:12:02.870 --> 00:12:06.129 catalyst for Ai Weiwei. The government flatly 00:12:06.129 --> 00:12:08.389 refused to release the names or even the total 00:12:08.389 --> 00:12:10.429 count of the students who died. They were just 00:12:10.429 --> 00:12:12.090 trying to bury the evidence of the corrupted 00:12:12.090 --> 00:12:14.610 construction. And Ai Weiwei decided this could 00:12:14.610 --> 00:12:16.929 not stand. So he recruited volunteers online 00:12:16.929 --> 00:12:19.549 and launched what he called the Citizens Investigation 00:12:19.549 --> 00:12:22.230 to compile the names and details of the student 00:12:22.230 --> 00:12:24.950 victims themselves. This was dangerous, painstaking 00:12:24.950 --> 00:12:27.529 work that the state explicitly did not want anyone 00:12:27.529 --> 00:12:30.009 doing. His mission statement, which he posted 00:12:30.009 --> 00:12:32.409 on his blog right before it got shut down, just 00:12:32.409 --> 00:12:35.309 captures the moral urgency of it all. To remember 00:12:35.309 --> 00:12:38.929 the departed. To show concern for life. To take 00:12:38.929 --> 00:12:42.340 responsibility. We are initiating a citizen's 00:12:42.340 --> 00:12:44.500 investigation. We will seek out the names of 00:12:44.500 --> 00:12:46.899 each departed child and we will remember them. 00:12:47.059 --> 00:12:49.679 The logistical effort involved in that kind of 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:52.100 digital age investigation must have been immense. 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:54.879 It was. These volunteers were on the ground. 00:12:54.899 --> 00:12:57.759 They were risking harassment, meticulously cross 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:00.419 -referencing information, trying to give names 00:13:00.419 --> 00:13:02.799 back to these faceless statistics. And the results 00:13:02.799 --> 00:13:05.879 were shocking. By April 2009, the list had 5 00:13:05.879 --> 00:13:09.419 ,385 names on it. This was the data the government 00:13:09.419 --> 00:13:12.379 refused to acknowledge. He published this exhaustive 00:13:12.379 --> 00:13:14.659 documentation on his blog. He even turned it 00:13:14.659 --> 00:13:17.259 into an audio work. Remembrance. Right, where 00:13:17.259 --> 00:13:19.539 people online recorded themselves reciting the 00:13:19.539 --> 00:13:22.320 names of over 5 ,000 students over and over again 00:13:22.320 --> 00:13:24.299 to ensure the cover -up could not be silent. 00:13:24.519 --> 00:13:26.419 And this is where the cost of that activism became 00:13:26.419 --> 00:13:30.379 physical and immediate. Yes. In August 2009, 00:13:30.759 --> 00:13:34.120 Ai Weiwei traveled to Chengdu to testify in the 00:13:34.120 --> 00:13:36.620 trial of a fellow investigator, Tans Warren. 00:13:37.080 --> 00:13:39.039 who had been charged with inciting subversion. 00:13:39.580 --> 00:13:42.000 And while he was there, trying to perform this 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:44.879 civic duty, he was beaten by the police. The 00:13:44.879 --> 00:13:47.759 consequence was nearly fatal. A month later, 00:13:47.860 --> 00:13:51.259 in September 2009, he's in Munich, Germany, preparing 00:13:51.259 --> 00:13:54.600 for a major exhibition. And he collapses. Rushed 00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:56.620 to the hospital. Emergency brain surgery for 00:13:56.620 --> 00:14:00.100 a cerebral hemorrhage. And the doctors definitively 00:14:00.100 --> 00:14:02.539 linked it. to the police beating in Chengdu. 00:14:02.720 --> 00:14:04.340 When you think about it, he was literally putting 00:14:04.340 --> 00:14:07.279 his body on the line, risking his life just to 00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:09.659 publish the names of dead children. And the attacks 00:14:09.659 --> 00:14:11.779 weren't just physical. They were coordinated. 00:14:12.139 --> 00:14:14.059 The Financial Times reported that two of his 00:14:14.059 --> 00:14:16.120 accounts were targeted in a highly sophisticated 00:14:16.120 --> 00:14:18.519 state -sponsored hack. Operation Aurora. That's 00:14:18.519 --> 00:14:20.600 the one, linked to attempts to force him to leave 00:14:20.600 --> 00:14:23.220 the country. And at the exact same time, state 00:14:23.220 --> 00:14:25.620 security agents started aggressively investigating 00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:29.559 his bank accounts for unspecified suspected crimes. 00:14:30.120 --> 00:14:32.980 So the message from the state was a three -pronged 00:14:32.980 --> 00:14:36.639 assault. Physical violence, digital espionage, 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:39.399 and financial suppression. They wanted him silenced, 00:14:39.519 --> 00:14:42.600 exiled, or broke. And their failure to do that 00:14:42.600 --> 00:14:45.320 led directly into the next phase. Full -blown 00:14:45.320 --> 00:14:47.500 state aggression designed to physically destroy 00:14:47.500 --> 00:14:49.639 his life and his work. And that starts around 00:14:49.639 --> 00:14:52.539 2010. Yes. This is where we get into the Shanghai 00:14:52.539 --> 00:14:54.799 studio controversy. And the initial premise is 00:14:54.799 --> 00:14:57.490 just so cynical. The government, specifically 00:14:57.490 --> 00:15:00.330 the Jiading District in Shanghai, actually invited 00:15:00.330 --> 00:15:02.950 him to build a studio there in 2008. It was part 00:15:02.950 --> 00:15:05.210 of this cultural development push. Right. And 00:15:05.210 --> 00:15:07.970 he completed this striking large studio in August 00:15:07.970 --> 00:15:11.389 2010. But the irony is just palpable. As soon 00:15:11.389 --> 00:15:13.610 as the building was done and his political critique 00:15:13.610 --> 00:15:16.429 was at a fever pitch, the terms suddenly changed. 00:15:16.730 --> 00:15:20.070 Only two months later, October 2010, the Shanghai 00:15:20.070 --> 00:15:22.879 government declares the brand new studio an illegal 00:15:22.879 --> 00:15:26.059 construction and slates it for immediate demolition. 00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:29.259 And AIY publicly called this out as biased retaliation, 00:15:29.340 --> 00:15:31.320 saying he was the only one singled out to have 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:33.759 my studio destroyed. He directly linked it to 00:15:33.759 --> 00:15:36.519 officials being upset by his documentaries. So 00:15:36.519 --> 00:15:40.059 his response was immediate defiance. He planned 00:15:40.059 --> 00:15:42.679 a party to mark the planned demolition. He wanted 00:15:42.679 --> 00:15:44.659 to turn the site of his own destruction into 00:15:44.659 --> 00:15:47.279 a point of celebration and protest. But the state 00:15:47.279 --> 00:15:50.070 moved to preempt him. In November 2010, he's 00:15:50.070 --> 00:15:52.129 placed under house arrest to physically stop 00:15:52.129 --> 00:15:54.929 him from attending his own party. But this act 00:15:54.929 --> 00:15:57.149 of suppression led to one of his most legendary 00:15:57.149 --> 00:16:00.529 acts of public defiance, the River Crab Feast. 00:16:00.570 --> 00:16:03.070 This is the genius of his political performance 00:16:03.070 --> 00:16:05.730 art. It really is. Despite his house arrest, 00:16:05.950 --> 00:16:07.970 over a thousand netizens still showed up for 00:16:07.970 --> 00:16:10.809 the party. And they consumed River Crab, or HeZ. 00:16:11.309 --> 00:16:13.850 Which is this brilliant, widely understood euphemism 00:16:13.850 --> 00:16:16.750 in Chinese used to mock official censorship and 00:16:16.750 --> 00:16:19.190 the government's constant demand for social harmony. 00:16:19.490 --> 00:16:21.730 So the feast itself became an artistic protest 00:16:21.730 --> 00:16:25.129 against being silenced. It turned a local bureaucratic 00:16:25.129 --> 00:16:27.649 demolition into a global story about cultural 00:16:27.649 --> 00:16:30.129 defiance. But the government still needed to 00:16:30.129 --> 00:16:33.529 assert its power. On January 11, 2011, the studio 00:16:33.529 --> 00:16:36.639 was forcibly demolished in a surprise move. without 00:16:36.639 --> 00:16:39.919 any prior notice. A complete physical erasure 00:16:39.919 --> 00:16:41.559 of the structure. It was the government's way 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:44.360 of saying, we can build you up, but we can also 00:16:44.360 --> 00:16:47.159 instantly and violently tear you down. And this 00:16:47.159 --> 00:16:49.960 cycle of escalating confrontation just culminates 00:16:49.960 --> 00:16:52.159 three months later in the most defining moment 00:16:52.159 --> 00:16:54.600 of his career. The 2011 arrest and detention. 00:16:55.019 --> 00:16:58.340 April 3rd, 2011. He's arrested at Beijing Capital 00:16:58.340 --> 00:17:00.639 International Airport trying to fly to Hong Kong. 00:17:00.879 --> 00:17:03.159 Security agents search his studio. They seize 00:17:03.159 --> 00:17:06.490 everything. Laptops. data, and they detained 00:17:06.490 --> 00:17:08.569 eight of his staff members and his wife, Liu 00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:10.990 King, for short periods. The official reason 00:17:10.990 --> 00:17:14.029 was, as you'd expect, economic. The Ministry 00:17:14.029 --> 00:17:15.829 of Foreign Affairs claimed he was being investigated 00:17:15.829 --> 00:17:19.150 for economic crimes, specifically tax evasion. 00:17:19.250 --> 00:17:22.049 But the reality, according to his global supporters, 00:17:22.250 --> 00:17:25.849 was pure political retaliation. This arrest happened 00:17:25.849 --> 00:17:28.410 right in the middle of this online call for Middle 00:17:28.410 --> 00:17:30.910 East -style political protests in China. The 00:17:30.910 --> 00:17:33.950 Jasmine Revolution. Right. And the sources reveal 00:17:33.950 --> 00:17:36.450 that just days before his arrest, AI had tweeted 00:17:36.450 --> 00:17:39.130 about this specific reference to Jasmine. He 00:17:39.130 --> 00:17:41.069 noted how people who were scared of it were sending 00:17:41.069 --> 00:17:43.289 out information about how harmful it was. Which 00:17:43.289 --> 00:17:46.690 led him to realize that Jasmine is what scares 00:17:46.690 --> 00:17:48.950 them the most. He recognized the power of their 00:17:48.950 --> 00:17:51.170 idea right before they snatched him. And the 00:17:51.170 --> 00:17:54.609 global response was immediate and really unprecedented. 00:17:54.890 --> 00:17:57.210 It showed just how effective his international 00:17:57.210 --> 00:17:59.710 platform had become. The U .S. government, the 00:17:59.710 --> 00:18:02.750 EU, major human rights groups, art institutions 00:18:02.750 --> 00:18:05.529 worldwide, they all protested his detention. 00:18:06.089 --> 00:18:08.809 Tate Modern in London, which was hosting his 00:18:08.809 --> 00:18:11.309 massive sunflower seeds installation at the time, 00:18:11.410 --> 00:18:14.130 made this very definitive public statement. They 00:18:14.130 --> 00:18:15.930 put a huge sign on the outside of the museum 00:18:15.930 --> 00:18:18.869 that just read, Release a Huawei. A group of 00:18:18.869 --> 00:18:21.529 European intellectuals, led by Václav Havel, 00:18:21.630 --> 00:18:23.829 the former Czech president, published an open 00:18:23.829 --> 00:18:25.829 letter to the Chinese premier condemning the 00:18:25.829 --> 00:18:28.809 arrest. Petitions demanding his release got over 00:18:28.809 --> 00:18:31.630 90 ,000 signatures. Meanwhile, the Chinese state 00:18:31.630 --> 00:18:33.829 countered with a massive character assassination 00:18:33.829 --> 00:18:36.710 campaign through its media. And they didn't just 00:18:36.710 --> 00:18:39.650 stick to tax fraud. State media launched this 00:18:39.650 --> 00:18:42.630 comprehensive smear effort. They described him 00:18:42.630 --> 00:18:46.009 as a deviant and a plagiarist. The pro -Beijing 00:18:46.009 --> 00:18:48.609 newspaper Wen Weipo accused him of tax evasion, 00:18:48.690 --> 00:18:51.950 bigamy and spreading indecent images. Now, this 00:18:51.950 --> 00:18:54.109 is a critical point we have to analyze impartially. 00:18:54.230 --> 00:18:56.190 The state was not just pursuing him legally. 00:18:56.309 --> 00:18:59.369 They were actively trying to destroy his social 00:18:59.369 --> 00:19:02.230 reputation and his artistic credibility. Right. 00:19:02.349 --> 00:19:04.789 While his supporters dismissed all this as a 00:19:04.789 --> 00:19:07.299 politically motivated character attack. The sources 00:19:07.299 --> 00:19:09.759 clearly show the state was leveraging every tool 00:19:09.759 --> 00:19:14.299 it had, legal, social, cultural, to just delegitimize 00:19:14.299 --> 00:19:16.839 his critique. And after 81 days of detention, 00:19:17.180 --> 00:19:19.700 the details of his confinement provide the most 00:19:19.700 --> 00:19:21.480 chilling insight into the state's calculated 00:19:21.480 --> 00:19:24.119 methods. After his release, his sister revealed 00:19:24.119 --> 00:19:27.019 the conditions. He was kept in a tiny room with 00:19:27.019 --> 00:19:29.759 constant, unceasing artificial light. He was 00:19:29.759 --> 00:19:33.039 watched, monitored, 24 -7 by two guards, never 00:19:33.039 --> 00:19:35.230 alone for a single moment. It was a deliberate 00:19:35.230 --> 00:19:37.970 form of psychological torture. It wasn't designed 00:19:37.970 --> 00:19:40.529 to harm him physically, but to break him mentally. 00:19:40.990 --> 00:19:43.289 Highly personalized detention. And what stands 00:19:43.289 --> 00:19:45.529 out most is A .I. Y -Way's own reflection on 00:19:45.529 --> 00:19:47.730 this experience. He said, in jail, there are 00:19:47.730 --> 00:19:49.789 certain conditions where you wish to die rather 00:19:49.789 --> 00:19:52.829 than to stay alive. Basically, you use life to 00:19:52.829 --> 00:19:57.000 punish life. You use life to punish life. That 00:19:57.000 --> 00:19:59.319 powerful description just gave you a clear window 00:19:59.319 --> 00:20:02.000 into the calculated dehumanization process he 00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:04.880 endured. He was released on bail on June 22, 00:20:05.200 --> 00:20:08.420 2011. And state media claimed it was due to his... 00:20:08.750 --> 00:20:11.109 good attitude in confessing his crimes and his 00:20:11.109 --> 00:20:13.369 willingness to pay back taxes. But the sources 00:20:13.369 --> 00:20:15.950 also cite a counterpoint. A professor from the 00:20:15.950 --> 00:20:17.890 China University of Political Science and Law 00:20:17.890 --> 00:20:20.289 suggested the release on bail was actually a 00:20:20.289 --> 00:20:22.650 sign that the government didn't have solid evidence 00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:25.269 to support the economic crime charges. Right. 00:20:25.349 --> 00:20:28.309 So they released him to avoid a prolonged, embarrassing 00:20:28.309 --> 00:20:31.549 legal battle. He was, however, prohibited from 00:20:31.549 --> 00:20:33.809 leaving Beijing for one year. Which immediately 00:20:33.809 --> 00:20:36.529 led into the next and longest phase of the conflict. 00:20:37.039 --> 00:20:40.180 Part four, the tax case. This became a long, 00:20:40.180 --> 00:20:42.900 grinding legal and financial suppression effort. 00:20:43.019 --> 00:20:45.180 Designed to break his resolve through sheer bureaucracy. 00:20:45.599 --> 00:20:47.960 The Beijing Local Taxation Bureau moved swiftly, 00:20:48.099 --> 00:20:50.960 demanding a massive sum over 12 million yuan. 00:20:51.259 --> 00:20:54.900 That's about 1 .85 million U .S. dollars. In 00:20:54.900 --> 00:20:57.779 unpaid taxes and fines from his company, Beijing 00:20:57.779 --> 00:21:01.039 Feiki Cultural Development Ltd. And it's important 00:21:01.039 --> 00:21:03.440 to remember, this company was technically registered 00:21:03.440 --> 00:21:07.180 in his wife's name, Liu Qing. So the state was 00:21:07.180 --> 00:21:09.619 using legal mechanisms to try and bankrupt his 00:21:09.619 --> 00:21:12.539 family and his organization. But the global response 00:21:12.539 --> 00:21:15.759 to this financial threat turned that fine into 00:21:15.759 --> 00:21:18.539 a spectacular crowdsourced counterperformance. 00:21:18.940 --> 00:21:21.119 An online loan campaign was started globally 00:21:21.119 --> 00:21:24.519 in November 2011 to raise the funds needed for 00:21:24.519 --> 00:21:27.039 the appeal collateral. The scale and the speed 00:21:27.039 --> 00:21:29.099 of the response were phenomenal. Within just 00:21:29.099 --> 00:21:32.599 10 days, nearly 9 million RMB, that's close to 00:21:32.599 --> 00:21:35.220 $1 .4 million, was collected from over... Over 00:21:35.220 --> 00:21:37.799 30 ,000 individual contributors around the world. 00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:39.819 This wasn't just fundraising. It was like a digital 00:21:39.819 --> 00:21:42.519 referendum on his innocence and the state's overreach. 00:21:42.680 --> 00:21:44.500 And the symbolism in the donations is incredibly 00:21:44.500 --> 00:21:47.000 poignant. Contributors would often send funds 00:21:47.000 --> 00:21:49.200 in very specific symbolic amounts that referenced 00:21:49.200 --> 00:21:52.859 major political tragedies. Like 8 -964. Referencing 00:21:52.859 --> 00:21:56.119 June 4th, 1989, the date of the Tiananmen Massacre. 00:21:56.240 --> 00:21:59.839 Or 5 -12, from May 12, 2008, the date of the 00:21:59.839 --> 00:22:02.380 Sichuan earthquake. The donations were acts of 00:22:02.380 --> 00:22:05.849 collective memory. They transformed this bureaucratic 00:22:05.849 --> 00:22:08.670 tax appeal into a memorial for state crimes. 00:22:08.890 --> 00:22:11.869 And Ewewe underscored this by insisting the funds 00:22:11.869 --> 00:22:15.710 were loans, not donations. He issued personalized 00:22:15.710 --> 00:22:19.190 loan receipts to every single participant, acknowledging 00:22:19.190 --> 00:22:21.549 the funds were just collateral for his appeal. 00:22:21.710 --> 00:22:24.589 He effectively turned 30 ,000 global citizens 00:22:24.589 --> 00:22:28.009 into co -conspirators in his legal defense. The 00:22:28.009 --> 00:22:30.990 whole suppression effort just backfired spectacularly 00:22:30.990 --> 00:22:33.250 in terms of public relations. But despite the 00:22:33.250 --> 00:22:36.049 public backing, the legal process remained entirely 00:22:36.049 --> 00:22:39.119 predictable. The court heard the appeal in June 00:22:39.119 --> 00:22:42.319 2012, but AI himself was prohibited from even 00:22:42.319 --> 00:22:44.359 attending the hearing. Which just highlights 00:22:44.359 --> 00:22:46.660 the predetermined nature of the outcome. He had 00:22:46.660 --> 00:22:48.779 no illusions. He'd already said publicly he expected 00:22:48.779 --> 00:22:50.359 the court to protect the government's interests. 00:22:50.619 --> 00:22:53.119 And his prediction proved accurate. The appeal 00:22:53.119 --> 00:22:56.420 was rejected in July 2012. The final fine upheld 00:22:56.420 --> 00:22:59.900 at about $2 .4 million. He deposited the initial 00:22:59.900 --> 00:23:01.640 collateral but refused to pay the rest. Right. 00:23:01.720 --> 00:23:03.660 He maintained he just didn't recognize the charge 00:23:03.660 --> 00:23:06.750 as legitimate. So the state responded with bureaucratic 00:23:06.750 --> 00:23:11.289 strangulation. In October 2012, authorities revoked 00:23:11.289 --> 00:23:14.109 his company's license because it failed to complete 00:23:14.109 --> 00:23:16.990 its annual re -registration. But the company 00:23:16.990 --> 00:23:19.529 couldn't re -register because, and this is crucial, 00:23:19.869 --> 00:23:22.609 the state security had confiscated all its corporate 00:23:22.609 --> 00:23:25.250 materials and official stamps during the 2011 00:23:25.250 --> 00:23:28.269 arrest. So it wasn't an oversight. It was a deliberate, 00:23:28.390 --> 00:23:31.109 technical maneuver to make sure the company could 00:23:31.109 --> 00:23:34.259 no longer legally operate. And you see this continuous 00:23:34.259 --> 00:23:37.359 petty harassment, not just the big legal battles. 00:23:37.400 --> 00:23:40.720 It extends to institutional censorship within 00:23:40.720 --> 00:23:43.519 China. Even years later, his name just became 00:23:43.519 --> 00:23:46.339 poisonous. Right. Like in 2014, at the 15 years 00:23:46.339 --> 00:23:49.119 of Chinese contemporary artwork show in Shanghai, 00:23:49.220 --> 00:23:51.339 the pressure became really clear there. His name 00:23:51.339 --> 00:23:53.119 was physically removed from the list of winners 00:23:53.119 --> 00:23:55.779 and jury members. And his major artworks, sunflower 00:23:55.779 --> 00:23:58.500 seeds, stools, they were physically taken off 00:23:58.500 --> 00:24:00.849 the exhibition floor. The curator later confirmed 00:24:00.849 --> 00:24:02.829 that was a direct decision from the Shanghai 00:24:02.829 --> 00:24:05.569 Municipal Bureau of Culture. And a similar thing 00:24:05.569 --> 00:24:07.589 happened at the Ullens Center for Contemporary 00:24:07.589 --> 00:24:10.470 Art in Beijing, an exhibition honoring the late 00:24:10.470 --> 00:24:14.750 curator Hans van Dyck. AI contributed three artworks, 00:24:14.750 --> 00:24:17.869 but his name was conspicuously missing from the 00:24:17.869 --> 00:24:21.250 press release. So AI and his assistants protested 00:24:21.250 --> 00:24:23.650 by just removing his three artworks from the 00:24:23.650 --> 00:24:26.430 show. Which forced the issue publicly. The CEO 00:24:26.430 --> 00:24:28.509 of the center later admitted the omission was 00:24:28.509 --> 00:24:31.450 to avoid problems with authorities who had specifically 00:24:31.450 --> 00:24:33.890 threatened to arrest her if his name was included. 00:24:34.109 --> 00:24:36.609 So it demonstrates this constant threat, forcing 00:24:36.609 --> 00:24:39.349 institutions to basically participate in his 00:24:39.349 --> 00:24:42.130 erasure just to protect themselves. Okay, so 00:24:42.130 --> 00:24:43.890 let's move from the conflicts back to the creations. 00:24:44.170 --> 00:24:46.869 We have to spend some time on part five, the 00:24:46.869 --> 00:24:49.049 major visual art and architectural pieces that 00:24:49.049 --> 00:24:51.539 really define his work. He uses these physical 00:24:51.539 --> 00:24:54.140 objects as historical and political commentary. 00:24:54.359 --> 00:24:56.380 And if we start with his early conceptual work, 00:24:56.500 --> 00:24:58.839 you have to look at dropping a Han Dynasty urn 00:24:58.839 --> 00:25:02.460 from 1995. It's a piece of performance art documented 00:25:02.460 --> 00:25:06.160 in three large photos, showing him holding, then 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:09.119 dropping, and then watching this 2000 year old 00:25:09.119 --> 00:25:11.920 ceramic piece just shatter on the ground. It's 00:25:11.920 --> 00:25:14.559 a violent, deliberate act of destruction against 00:25:14.559 --> 00:25:16.960 what most people would see as irreplaceable cultural 00:25:16.960 --> 00:25:20.440 heritage. So why smash history? critique history. 00:25:20.680 --> 00:25:23.279 It's a profound critique of heritage and value, 00:25:23.440 --> 00:25:26.859 specifically in a state that claims to protect 00:25:26.859 --> 00:25:29.559 ancient history while at the same time destroying 00:25:29.559 --> 00:25:32.099 its own recent political and cultural history, 00:25:32.220 --> 00:25:34.359 whether it's the Cultural Revolution or just 00:25:34.359 --> 00:25:37.240 rapid uncritical modernization. He's asking, 00:25:37.339 --> 00:25:41.259 where do we place real value? In a ceramic pot 00:25:41.259 --> 00:25:44.819 or in human dignity. Exactly. And the source 00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:47.339 material gives us the powerful silent counterpoint 00:25:47.339 --> 00:25:50.180 to this. Straight. Created between 2008 and 2012. 00:25:50.680 --> 00:25:53.779 This is a monumental memorial to the Sichuan 00:25:53.779 --> 00:25:56.119 earthquake victims. The scale and execution are 00:25:56.119 --> 00:25:58.960 just staggering. He collected 150 tons of twisted 00:25:58.960 --> 00:26:01.599 steel rebar that was recovered from those collapsed 00:26:01.599 --> 00:26:04.380 tofu dreg schools. And the destruction was visible 00:26:04.380 --> 00:26:07.160 in every single bent, mangled piece of steel. 00:26:07.339 --> 00:26:10.019 And then his studio staff undertook this incredible... 00:26:09.640 --> 00:26:13.259 incredibly arduous, almost monastic task, meticulously 00:26:13.259 --> 00:26:15.759 straightening every single bar out one by one 00:26:15.759 --> 00:26:18.839 for years. And that labor of restoration is central 00:26:18.839 --> 00:26:21.460 to the piece. The final installation displays 00:26:21.460 --> 00:26:23.799 these perfectly straightened bars lying side 00:26:23.799 --> 00:26:26.759 by side, like waves or seismic lines on the floor. 00:26:26.900 --> 00:26:29.660 It's an intensely powerful, silent memorial. 00:26:30.170 --> 00:26:32.230 He took the physical evidence of corruption and 00:26:32.230 --> 00:26:35.089 tragedy and subjected it to this painstaking 00:26:35.089 --> 00:26:38.910 process of forced ethical restoration. Attempting 00:26:38.910 --> 00:26:40.750 to restore dignity and order where the state 00:26:40.750 --> 00:26:43.430 had only offered cover up and chaos. And then, 00:26:43.430 --> 00:26:45.549 of course, there's the piece that introduced 00:26:45.549 --> 00:26:48.670 his conceptual scale to the mass public, Sunflower 00:26:48.670 --> 00:26:52.089 Seeds, at the Tate Modern in 2010. A masterclass 00:26:52.089 --> 00:26:55.150 in monumental conceptual art. It combines this 00:26:55.150 --> 00:26:57.589 immense scale with profound political meaning. 00:26:57.869 --> 00:27:00.809 It was 100 million individually handmade and 00:27:00.809 --> 00:27:03.369 hand -painted porcelain seeds spread across the 00:27:03.369 --> 00:27:06.430 vast Turban Hall floor. 100 million seeds. The 00:27:06.430 --> 00:27:08.509 scope is just mind -boggling, and the critique 00:27:08.509 --> 00:27:10.730 has two layers, right? First, the political reference. 00:27:10.869 --> 00:27:13.369 Yeah. During the Mao era, Mao was constantly 00:27:13.369 --> 00:27:15.849 shown in propaganda as the sun, and the masses 00:27:15.849 --> 00:27:17.710 of Chinese people were the seeds turning towards 00:27:17.710 --> 00:27:20.730 him. A Huawei takes that image and completely 00:27:20.730 --> 00:27:23.970 subverts it. So the sheer overwhelming mass of 00:27:23.970 --> 00:27:27.170 these tiny, individually crafted seeds symbolizes 00:27:27.150 --> 00:27:29.690 mobilizes the latent collective power of the 00:27:29.690 --> 00:27:32.309 Chinese people. He's suggesting that this overwhelming 00:27:32.309 --> 00:27:35.430 population, when united, is strong enough to 00:27:35.430 --> 00:27:37.589 stand up to and potentially overthrow the CCP. 00:27:37.930 --> 00:27:39.670 And the second layer is the economic critique, 00:27:39.910 --> 00:27:42.650 the challenge to the whole made -in -China mantra. 00:27:43.150 --> 00:27:47.029 Precisely. To create 100 million seemingly identical 00:27:47.029 --> 00:27:50.470 items, he deliberately used traditional labor 00:27:50.470 --> 00:27:53.140 -intensive methods. The sources say it required 00:27:53.140 --> 00:27:56.119 1 ,600 artisans in Jingdezhen working for two 00:27:56.119 --> 00:27:59.380 and a half years. So this monumental effort memorializes 00:27:59.380 --> 00:28:02.160 the intense, often invisible human labor that's 00:28:02.160 --> 00:28:04.480 usually hidden behind mass industrialized products 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:07.710 stamped made in China. It's forcing you. the 00:28:07.710 --> 00:28:10.109 viewer, to confront the human cost of that scale. 00:28:10.309 --> 00:28:12.930 And his work also directly addresses the persecution 00:28:12.930 --> 00:28:15.529 he endured, like the sculpture surveillance camera 00:28:15.529 --> 00:28:18.430 from 2010. A marble sculpture made in direct 00:28:18.430 --> 00:28:20.509 response to the government installing surveillance 00:28:20.509 --> 00:28:22.549 and listening devices in and around his Beijing 00:28:22.549 --> 00:28:24.890 studio as a specific form of political punishment. 00:28:25.109 --> 00:28:27.829 So by taking this modern symbol of state control, 00:28:28.029 --> 00:28:31.049 the video camera, and rendering it in classical 00:28:31.049 --> 00:28:34.349 enduring marble, he's elevating the issue. He's 00:28:34.349 --> 00:28:37.430 saying this oppression isn't temporary. It's 00:28:37.430 --> 00:28:39.849 a permanent classical feature of this regime. 00:28:40.130 --> 00:28:42.849 Similarly, the Hesa crab sculptures from 2010. 00:28:43.069 --> 00:28:45.470 Directly referencing the river crab wordplay 00:28:45.470 --> 00:28:47.130 we talked about, the euphemism for censorship. 00:28:47.869 --> 00:28:50.490 Sculpting the crabs in porcelain turns the political 00:28:50.490 --> 00:28:52.349 mockery right back on the government that tried 00:28:52.349 --> 00:28:54.970 to silence him. Then there's Trace, the massive 00:28:54.970 --> 00:28:57.609 floor installation from 2014. It was made up 00:28:57.609 --> 00:29:01.490 of 176 portraits composed entirely of Lego bricks. 00:29:01.769 --> 00:29:04.509 And the location was so deliberate, so powerful. 00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:07.180 It was originally installed inside the notorious 00:29:07.180 --> 00:29:10.920 Alcatraz prison in San Francisco. The 176 portraits 00:29:10.920 --> 00:29:13.339 depicted political prisoners and prisoners of 00:29:13.339 --> 00:29:15.160 conscience from all over the world. The contrast 00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:18.440 is key there. It is. He's using Lego, a child's 00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:20.859 toy, a symbol of playful construction and innocence, 00:29:21.079 --> 00:29:23.559 to depict figures enduring serious persecution, 00:29:23.799 --> 00:29:26.759 often held in isolation, in a place synonymous 00:29:26.759 --> 00:29:29.529 with extreme confinement. After Alcatraz, it 00:29:29.529 --> 00:29:32.529 moved to the Hirshhorn Museum in D .C., and the 00:29:32.529 --> 00:29:34.890 installation didn't just stop at viewing, it 00:29:34.890 --> 00:29:38.130 encouraged civic action. Yes, the exhibition 00:29:38.130 --> 00:29:40.670 allowed visitors to write postcards that were 00:29:40.670 --> 00:29:42.410 then sent to the political prisoners depicted 00:29:42.410 --> 00:29:45.210 in the work. He seamlessly transformed artistic 00:29:45.210 --> 00:29:48.289 viewing into direct, tangible civic action. That's 00:29:48.289 --> 00:29:51.029 a hallmark of his best work. And while his activism 00:29:51.029 --> 00:29:53.269 really drives the narrative, we can't forget 00:29:53.269 --> 00:29:55.549 his architectural practice beyond the bird's 00:29:55.549 --> 00:29:58.170 nest. No, he curated the Jinhua Architecture 00:29:58.170 --> 00:30:01.250 Park in 2002. And there are projects like the 00:30:01.250 --> 00:30:03.569 Tsai Residence in upstate New York designed with 00:30:03.569 --> 00:30:06.789 HHF architects. The source has noted its extraordinarily 00:30:06.789 --> 00:30:09.450 refined details. He also curated the ambitious 00:30:09.450 --> 00:30:12.730 Ordos 100 project, bringing together 100 architects 00:30:12.730 --> 00:30:16.029 from 29 countries to design villas in Inner Mongolia. 00:30:16.509 --> 00:30:18.670 And although that project remains unrealized, 00:30:18.710 --> 00:30:20.789 the documentary he made about it chronicles this 00:30:20.789 --> 00:30:23.329 massive global collaboration. His architectural 00:30:23.329 --> 00:30:25.470 work just underscores that he's not simply an 00:30:25.470 --> 00:30:28.009 anti -government figure. He is a designer who 00:30:28.009 --> 00:30:31.109 insists that design must have integrity. And 00:30:31.109 --> 00:30:33.170 when that integrity is compromised by political 00:30:33.170 --> 00:30:37.210 messaging, he rejects it. Exactly. And that distinction 00:30:37.210 --> 00:30:40.190 integrity over ideology becomes the central focus 00:30:40.190 --> 00:30:42.450 of Part 6, which really starts after he finally 00:30:42.450 --> 00:30:45.990 gets his passport back in 2015. This marks his 00:30:45.990 --> 00:30:48.549 decisive shift from focusing primarily on Chinese 00:30:48.549 --> 00:30:51.069 descent to global human rights concerns. And 00:30:51.069 --> 00:30:53.509 his extensive filmography is arguably the most 00:30:53.509 --> 00:30:56.630 crucial medium for this global shift. The films 00:30:56.630 --> 00:30:59.289 often serve as direct reporting. And they frequently 00:30:59.289 --> 00:31:01.829 put him or his team in direct conflict with local 00:31:01.829 --> 00:31:04.079 authorities all over the world. We mentioned 00:31:04.079 --> 00:31:06.980 discovering the piece earlier from 2009, which 00:31:06.980 --> 00:31:09.200 documents the specific incident where he was 00:31:09.200 --> 00:31:11.259 beaten by police while trying to testify for 00:31:11.259 --> 00:31:13.799 the Sichuan investigator. It's a literal cinematic 00:31:13.799 --> 00:31:16.359 record of his own persecution. Then there's A 00:31:16.359 --> 00:31:19.000 Beautiful Life, also from 2009, which details 00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:21.980 the remarkable story of Feng Zeng Nu. The Chinese 00:31:21.980 --> 00:31:23.920 citizen who lived in the passageway of Narita 00:31:23.920 --> 00:31:26.579 Airport outside Tokyo for 92 days in protest 00:31:26.579 --> 00:31:29.079 because Chinese police kept preventing him from 00:31:29.079 --> 00:31:31.299 returning home. And AI interviewed him three 00:31:31.299 --> 00:31:33.759 times right there at the airport. Another powerful 00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:36.619 example is Ping and Yu King from 2011, which 00:31:36.619 --> 00:31:38.720 investigates the suspicious death of a village 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:41.720 leader named Qian Yunwei, who was fighting the 00:31:41.720 --> 00:31:44.700 local government over confiscated land. The film 00:31:44.700 --> 00:31:46.859 crew documented being followed and obstructed 00:31:46.859 --> 00:31:49.140 by local authorities. And he even chronicled 00:31:49.140 --> 00:31:53.160 his own ordeal in the 2014 film. AIY Ways appeal. 00:31:53.539 --> 00:31:56.700 It reconstructs the events from his 2011 arrest 00:31:56.700 --> 00:31:59.980 through the final tax appeal ruling. After leaving 00:31:59.980 --> 00:32:03.279 China in 2015, his gaze shifted squarely onto 00:32:03.279 --> 00:32:05.940 the global refugee crisis. He committed intensely 00:32:05.940 --> 00:32:08.240 to documenting this massive movement of displaced 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:10.680 people. Which resulted in the feature documentary 00:32:10.680 --> 00:32:14.220 Human Flow in 2017, a global effort that included 00:32:14.220 --> 00:32:17.079 filming in the Gaza Strip. It's this expansive, 00:32:17.200 --> 00:32:19.680 humanistic look at the crisis, drawing heavily 00:32:19.680 --> 00:32:22.359 on his own personal experience of exile and statelessness. 00:32:22.539 --> 00:32:24.680 And he translated that crisis into monumental 00:32:24.680 --> 00:32:27.079 physical installations using his signature style. 00:32:27.539 --> 00:32:30.140 Law of the Journey from 2017 featured an all 00:32:30.140 --> 00:32:33.059 -black, 230 -foot -long inflatable boat carrying 00:32:33.059 --> 00:32:37.200 258 faceless refugee figures. That was the culmination 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:40.559 of his visits to 40 refugee camps during 2016. 00:32:41.390 --> 00:32:43.910 The scale of the boat, made of the same material 00:32:43.910 --> 00:32:46.329 as the real dinghies, combined with those faceless 00:32:46.329 --> 00:32:49.730 figures. It transforms the ephemeral, dangerous 00:32:49.730 --> 00:32:53.069 journey into this sober, monumental memorial. 00:32:53.470 --> 00:32:55.990 We also see his very visible public art -making 00:32:55.990 --> 00:32:59.490 statements, like his 2016 use of 14 ,000 discarded 00:32:59.490 --> 00:33:02.329 orange life jackets from Lesbos, Greece. Right. 00:33:02.349 --> 00:33:05.089 He used those life jackets, cast aside by people 00:33:05.089 --> 00:33:07.329 desperate for safety to cover the columns of 00:33:07.329 --> 00:33:09.680 the concert house in Berlin. It's highly effective. 00:33:09.940 --> 00:33:12.480 It instantly transforms this stately established 00:33:12.480 --> 00:33:15.740 European concert hall into an unexpected monument 00:33:15.740 --> 00:33:18.480 to displaced humanity. It forces the comfortable 00:33:18.480 --> 00:33:20.940 audience to confront the human cost of the crisis 00:33:20.940 --> 00:33:23.180 right on their doorstep. And the sources show 00:33:23.180 --> 00:33:25.710 that even living in Europe. Away from the direct 00:33:25.710 --> 00:33:28.230 threat of the Chinese state, his critical stances 00:33:28.230 --> 00:33:30.390 continue to generate controversy and confrontation, 00:33:30.690 --> 00:33:33.490 even with Western institutions. Like his longtime 00:33:33.490 --> 00:33:35.930 advocacy for the release of WikiLeaks founder 00:33:35.930 --> 00:33:39.309 Julian Assange. He sees Assange's situation as 00:33:39.309 --> 00:33:42.430 a litmus test for press freedom globally. He 00:33:42.430 --> 00:33:44.509 co -signed a letter condemning the UK and Swedish 00:33:44.509 --> 00:33:47.269 governments over Assange's detention, and he 00:33:47.269 --> 00:33:49.710 held a silent protest outside Old Bailey during 00:33:49.710 --> 00:33:52.579 his extradition hearing in 2020. And this stance 00:33:52.579 --> 00:33:55.000 led to conflict with Western cultural institutions, 00:33:55.259 --> 00:33:56.799 which is where things get really interesting. 00:33:57.099 --> 00:34:00.720 In 2021, an artwork supporting Assange, which 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:03.259 incorporated a photo of Assange's embassy running 00:34:03.259 --> 00:34:06.700 machine, was rejected by British curators. The 00:34:06.700 --> 00:34:08.599 curators claimed it didn't fit the exhibition 00:34:08.599 --> 00:34:13.000 concept. publicly interpreted this as institutions 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:16.599 refusing to touch on a topic like Assange, suggesting 00:34:16.599 --> 00:34:19.639 a kind of Western self -censorship around challenging 00:34:19.639 --> 00:34:22.539 powerful state interests. The most recent controversy 00:34:22.539 --> 00:34:24.599 detailed in the source material revolves around 00:34:24.599 --> 00:34:26.800 his comments on the Israeli -Palestinian conflict 00:34:26.800 --> 00:34:30.059 in 2023. AI has historically been a supporter 00:34:30.059 --> 00:34:33.099 of Palestinian causes. And his exhibition at 00:34:33.099 --> 00:34:35.659 the Listen Gallery in London was postponed indefinitely 00:34:35.659 --> 00:34:38.559 after he posted a tweet about the conflict. The 00:34:38.559 --> 00:34:41.019 tweet stated, The sense of guilt around the persecution 00:34:41.019 --> 00:34:43.239 of the Jewish people has been at times transferred 00:34:43.239 --> 00:34:46.239 to offset the Arab world. Financially, culturally, 00:34:46.480 --> 00:34:49.320 and in terms of media influence, the Jewish community 00:34:49.320 --> 00:34:51.440 has had a significant presence in the United 00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:54.239 States. We have to be very strict in our reporting 00:34:54.239 --> 00:34:57.420 here. The sources document the comment and they 00:34:57.420 --> 00:34:59.719 document the gallery's subsequent decision to 00:34:59.719 --> 00:35:02.079 postpone the exhibition, seeding concerns over 00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:04.420 the timing and the potential impact of his statement. 00:35:04.760 --> 00:35:07.920 Ai -Dai Weiwei also publicly criticized the suspension 00:35:07.920 --> 00:35:10.820 of NYU professors over comments regarding Israel, 00:35:11.039 --> 00:35:14.670 likening it to a cultural revolution. The postponement 00:35:14.670 --> 00:35:16.530 of his show in London just demonstrates that 00:35:16.530 --> 00:35:19.210 challenging, powerful, established views, whether 00:35:19.210 --> 00:35:21.289 it's the CCP or global political narratives, 00:35:21.510 --> 00:35:24.090 still carries significant artistic and professional 00:35:24.090 --> 00:35:27.329 costs, no matter where he lives. And geographically, 00:35:27.329 --> 00:35:29.289 he's been mobile. He moved to Berlin in 2015, 00:35:29.449 --> 00:35:32.190 but then left, controversially stating that Germany 00:35:32.190 --> 00:35:35.250 is not an open culture. He later moved to Cambridge 00:35:35.250 --> 00:35:37.809 and currently resides in Portugal, though he 00:35:37.809 --> 00:35:40.940 still keeps bases in Berlin and Cambridge. His 00:35:40.940 --> 00:35:43.739 entire life, even in relative safety, appears 00:35:43.739 --> 00:35:45.880 to be an ongoing search for a culture that's 00:35:45.880 --> 00:35:48.820 truly capable of handling open dissent. So let's 00:35:48.820 --> 00:35:50.780 synthesize everything we've discussed. We've 00:35:50.780 --> 00:35:53.400 covered decades of profound, disruptive work 00:35:53.400 --> 00:35:56.480 and continuous conflict. What are the key takeaways 00:35:56.480 --> 00:35:59.639 from this massive body of source material? I 00:35:59.639 --> 00:36:01.800 think the first is that Ai Weiwei's identity 00:36:01.800 --> 00:36:04.800 is wholly defined by the fight against authoritarianism 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:07.400 in all its forms. He's an artist of conceptual 00:36:07.400 --> 00:36:09.880 and monumental scale, but his primary medium 00:36:09.880 --> 00:36:12.480 is his own dissent, his willingness to document 00:36:12.480 --> 00:36:15.260 corruption and human rights abuses from the Sichuan 00:36:15.260 --> 00:36:17.920 earthquake to the global refugee crisis. He transformed 00:36:17.920 --> 00:36:20.280 persecution into production. The state beat him. 00:36:20.340 --> 00:36:22.789 He made a film about it. The state demolished 00:36:22.789 --> 00:36:25.150 his studio. Netizens turned it into a massive 00:36:25.150 --> 00:36:28.170 protest feast. The state demanded a massive fine 00:36:28.170 --> 00:36:30.909 and 30 ,000 citizens crowdfunded his defense 00:36:30.909 --> 00:36:33.849 with politically symbolic loans. And this commitment 00:36:33.849 --> 00:36:36.369 has earned him immense international recognition, 00:36:36.789 --> 00:36:39.730 often in direct proportion to the severity of 00:36:39.730 --> 00:36:42.590 the Chinese government's attacks. He was named 00:36:42.590 --> 00:36:45.389 Art Review's number one in their Power 100 list 00:36:45.389 --> 00:36:48.449 in 2011, the same year he was arrested. And the 00:36:48.449 --> 00:36:50.469 Chinese foreign ministry publicly criticized 00:36:50.469 --> 00:36:52.909 that selection, saying the choice was purely 00:36:52.909 --> 00:36:56.349 based on political bias. That same year, he was 00:36:56.349 --> 00:36:58.650 a runner up for Times Person of the Year, and 00:36:58.650 --> 00:37:01.389 he later received the inaugural Vaclav Havel 00:37:01.389 --> 00:37:04.449 Prize for creative dissent. He is a living testament 00:37:04.449 --> 00:37:06.590 to the fact that art in the hands of a determined 00:37:06.590 --> 00:37:09.230 individual can be one of the most powerful forms 00:37:09.230 --> 00:37:12.030 of political accountability. But this huge public 00:37:12.030 --> 00:37:14.710 platform stems directly from profound personal 00:37:14.710 --> 00:37:17.570 suffering. We keep coming back to those 81 days 00:37:17.570 --> 00:37:19.969 of detention and his reflection on that psychological 00:37:19.969 --> 00:37:23.289 torment. He processed that isolation by creating 00:37:23.289 --> 00:37:25.500 the sculpture man. in a cube, a concrete block 00:37:25.500 --> 00:37:28.440 containing a single figure in solitude, the likeness 00:37:28.440 --> 00:37:30.619 of myself. He believed everything in jail was 00:37:30.619 --> 00:37:32.519 against the essential meaning of being alive. 00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:34.940 So we'll leave you with this final provocative 00:37:34.940 --> 00:37:37.800 thought based on the entire scope of the material 00:37:37.800 --> 00:37:41.599 we've explored today. A .I. Weiwei has successfully 00:37:41.599 --> 00:37:44.519 transformed his deeply politically inflicted 00:37:44.519 --> 00:37:47.800 personal suffering, being that man in a cube 00:37:47.800 --> 00:37:50.599 into a universal platform for global advocacy 00:37:50.599 --> 00:37:54.119 from Chinese dissidents to Syrian refugees. So 00:37:54.119 --> 00:37:56.059 the question is, how does that experience of 00:37:56.059 --> 00:37:59.219 isolation and profound individual suffering both 00:37:59.219 --> 00:38:01.659 inform and potentially limit his ability to speak 00:38:01.659 --> 00:38:04.280 credibly and effectively about collective human 00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:06.780 suffering on a global stage? Can the personal 00:38:06.780 --> 00:38:09.360 wound ever truly encompass the universal tragedy, 00:38:09.559 --> 00:38:12.280 or does it always remain a highly effective yet 00:38:12.280 --> 00:38:15.219 singular perspective? It's the challenge of transforming 00:38:15.219 --> 00:38:17.400 intimate trauma into a universally effective 00:38:17.400 --> 00:38:20.000 political voice. A challenge he continues to 00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:22.300 tackle daily, wherever he may be. Food for thought 00:38:22.300 --> 00:38:24.039 indeed. Thank you for... joining us for the deep 00:38:24.039 --> 00:38:25.360 dive. We'll see you next time.