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Journalism of Courage
Weeks before his new art installation is unveiled in Kyiv, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei visited Ukraine. Photographs posted by him on Instagram show him in Kharkiv, a city in northeast Ukraine.
Among others are photographs of a Ukrainian flag billowing in the wind, sunflower fields, local cats and the artist with Ukrainian soldiers. He also met Ukrainian writer, musician and activist Serhiy Zhadan, businessman and Khartia commander Vsevolod Kozhemyako, footballer Andriy Shevchenko and artist Hamlet Zinkovsky.
Though Ai Weiwei did not caption his photographs, Russian-Canadian artist-activist Pyotr Verzilov shared his photographs with Ai Weiwei alongside some details of the visit.
He wrote, “The chief artist of modernity, one of the pillars of world culture, the symbol of modern art Ai Weiwei came to us at the frontline in the very heart of the war, on combat positions north of the beautiful city of Kharkiv…. The great Ai Weiwei — smart, cheeky and brave — as the number one cultural figure on Earth should be.”
The politically conscious artist and activist, who has often commented on geopolitical and humanitarian concerns through his works and otherwise, will be showing his work at Kyiv’s Pavilion 13, a former Soviet-era exposition hall that has now been renovated into a multi-disciplinary arts space.
Titled Three Perfectly Proportioned Spheres and Camouflage Uniforms Painted White, its metal structure is made of spherical forms that also comprised another Ai Weiwei work, Divina Proportione (2004–12), which was inspired by Renaissance master Leonardo da Vinci’s illustrations for an eponymous book on mathematics, written by Luca Pacioli.
Commissioned by Ribbon International, a not-for-profit organisation, according to its social media account, “… the work reflects on Enlightenment ideals of rationality — and how those frameworks are co-opted in a world shaped by conflict and concealment.
Speaking about it, Ai Weiwei stated, “That is the challenge, to build new works relating to what I feel, to me in the past and to the current situation. Art is more metaphysical. You cannot really give every description, but you can always suggest a gesture or attitude or some kind of symbolic meaning, more like a poetic gesture.”
