{"id":456,"date":"2019-05-18T01:53:16","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T01:53:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/?page_id=456"},"modified":"2019-05-18T14:50:09","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T14:50:09","slug":"ai-weiwei-breaking-chinese-society","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/projects\/ai-weiwei-breaking-chinese-society\/","title":{"rendered":"Ai Weiwei: Breaking Chinese Society"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As a contemporary Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei is famous both internationally and domestically. He is usually portrayed as a controversial figure in Mainland China for both his anti-government speech and his art pieces. His work received great attention in the field of art history, however, there is little if any philosophical connections been done, especially the connections between his work and Marxist thoughts. Therefore, this research paper will use three of Ai\u2019s artworks to illustrate the philosophical connections with Herbert Marcuse\u2019s one-dimensionality. Then this paper will further discuss the consumption and the public reception of Ai\u2019s work in China, which coincides with Louis Althusser\u2019s repressive and ideological apparatuses. At last, this paper will examine Ai through Marcuse\u2019s lenses that whether he is a disruptive character or an outsider who not only oppose the Chinese state but also break the containment of opposition within the Chinese society. Also, it is important to distinguish the state and the economy in this research due to two reasons; first is the state and the economy have a different but important influence on maintaining and shaping the art and ideology in China. The second reason is due to the Chinese unique political structure, socialism with Chinese characteristics (Constitution of the PRC, Amendment 2). This paper has no intention to fully investigate the political structure in China, but Ai\u2019s public reception in China can provide a different perspective to investigate this political and economic structure.<\/p>\n<p>Born on 28 August 1957 in Beijing, Ai was raised in a well-educated family. His father, Ai Qing, who is a famous poet and was mistreated during the Cultural Revolution. He and his family were sent to Xinjiang Province which is a thousand miles away from Beijing, and he lived there for 16 years. He returned to Beijing after the Cultural Revolution and he later went to New York to study painting at Parsons School of Design in 1981. Most of the paintings that he had during that time were lost since he was moving many times due to his poor financial standing. He returned to China in 1993 and started his own workshop in Beijing.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1165\" height=\"655\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/PueYywpkJW8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The first artwork that we are discussing is <em>Sunflower Seeds<\/em> which was exhibited in 2010 at the Tate Modern Museum in London. This work consists of one hundred million of man-made sunflower seeds that were painted by 1600 workers in China. The sunflowers seeds were placed on the floor of a 1000 square meter room and visitors are invited to walk on the seeds. Ai emphasized the production process and its relationship to workers in one of the videos posted on the museum website. In the video, he described that each sunflower seed is unique since they are carefully hand-drawn by thousands of workers aged from 18 to 70s. As one of the most famous places for making porcelain, Jingdezhen has been making porcelain for both the imperial court and commoners for more than a thousand year. Though Jingdezhen is still renowned for its porcelain in modern China, its traditional porcelain-making techniques face challenges as more duplicate and fake porcelain appeared as various techniques were developed both domestically and internationally. Though Ai did not specify the reason why he chooses Jingdezhen instead of other places in China to produce his one hundred million porcelain seeds, it is unlikely that he choose Jingdezhen simply because of its advanced technique.<\/p>\n<p>First, Ai is focusing on the production process of making these sunflower seeds, which is the actual handmaking of the sunflower seeds. As the video presented, there was an organized streamline that 1600 workers are assigned into different roles; some are making the molds of the sunflower seeds, some of pouring the clays into the molds, some are brushing strokes on the sunflower seeds, etc. This production process is not entirely an example of Marx\u2019s view of production since the workers were alienated from the final product, but they were not alienated from the means of production. It is true that the final art piece, which is one hundred million sunflower seeds that are exhibited in London is alienated from the workers since they never got any chance to view them all and neither could them walk on them. Their experience of the final products were hundreds of sacks of sunflower seeds ready to deliver to London. However, this alienation does not mean they were alienated from the means of production. In the videos, most of the workers are housewives, elders, and students who are not full-time workers. Most of them work in their houses and they had plenty of freedom to make mistakes since Ai was encouraging them not to make identical seeds. Though competition among the workers could exist since they are paid mostly by the quantity not quality, many of them did not consider it as a proper job, but instead a paid hobby. Therefore, it is difficult to argue that these workers were alienated from the means of production since no one truly owned the means of production. In this case, it will be unwise to consider Ai as the capitalist because unlike Marx\u2019s capitalists, he only owns the capital that allowed him to pay the workers, and he did not own any of the tools, equipment, factories, and techniques of making porcelain. This is one of the rare examples that does not fit Marx\u2019s theory of alienation in production, and this type of production can provide a new perspective for investigating the relationship between workers and means of production that Marx did not explicitly explain in his writing.<\/p>\n<p>Other than the production process, Ai also focused on the meaning of sunflower and its connection to Mao. In the video, he said, \u201cSunflower supported the whole revolution both spiritually and materially\u201d. The revolution he was referring to is Mao liberated China from both foreign and capitalistic power. Ai also explained that sunflower is a common theme in the portraits of Chairman Mao. In many of his portraits, Chairman Mao is represented as the sun and all the people and party members are the sunflowers. Though Ai did not challenge the political use of sunflower directly in the video, he alluded his criticisms while he said, \u201cI always think art is a tool to set up new questions. To create a basic structure which can be open to possibilities\u201d. By saying this, he is empowering new artistic meaning to sunflower and replacing the old political meaning.<\/p>\n<p>Creating new possibilities also coincides with Marcuse\u2019s thought while he was discussing freedom in the first chapter of One-Dimensional Man that liberation is the negation of the prevailing modes. (Marcuse, 4). Ai not only achieve Marcuse political freedom but also intellectual freedom since Marcuse defined political freedom as \u201cliberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control\u201d, and intellectual freedom as \u201cthe restoration of individual thought now absorbed by mass communication and indoctrination, abolition of \u2018public opinion\u2019 together with its makers\u201d (Marcuse, 6). Maris Boyd Gillette, a social anthropologist, argued in her book that Communisms not only influence the subject matter of Jingdezhen\u2019s porcelain but also shape the manufacturing industry of Jingdezhen (Gillette). She further argued that state-control of the factories led to the ultimate decline of porcelain production in Jingdezhen in the late 20th century (Gillette). Therefore, it is reasonable to conclude by making one hundred million sunflower seeds in Jingdezhen is not only liberating the labor from making Mao\u2019s portraits with sunflowers and but also allow the viewers of the exhibition to walk on these sunflower seeds which once possessed political meaning in China. The contrast that Ai created here served Marcuse\u2019s political and intellectual freedom.<\/p>\n<p>Though Ai spent more than 10 years in the U.S and he admitted that his art was heavily influenced by Dadaism and early Russian Constructiveness, he has great interest Chinese traditional art, especially ceramics and pottery vases. This research will focus on two of his artworks which both show Ai\u2019s iconoclastic approach to traditions and authority.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-video\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1165\" height=\"655\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/CbHRU9k2zNA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>The first one is\u00a0<em>Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn<\/em> (1995), which was exhibited in New York. Three black and white photographs were taken while Ai was dropping a precious 2000 years old Han Dynasty Urn. This exhibition received harsh criticism both in China and internationally. Many criticized him for destroying ancient artifacts that should be kept in the museums properly and regularly viewed by visitors all around the world. Some critics such as Charles Merewether had different views; he argued that breaking the antique bowl by Ai \u201cdoubled the irony of state discourse to expose it as a discourse of power\u201d (Smith, 34). However, Ai did not agree with Merewether completely, and Ai elaborated in an interview with Merewether in 2003 by answering whether his work \u201crepresents an iconoclastic gesture against power and authority\u2026a very powerful counter-gesture?\u201d Ai answered \u201cNo, it was not powerful; it is only grabbed by the weight and gravity. It\u2019s powerful only because someone thinks it\u2019s powerful and invests value in the object\u201d (Smith, 34). Therefore, Ai is not simply being iconoclastic by destroying the ancient urns and the associated traditions, but instead, he is looking for the appreciation and understanding from the viewers. The power of this piece does not lie on the act of throwing the urns; the power of this piece is generated by the viewers instead.<\/p>\n<p>The imposition of value that Ai discussed in the interview has an unsolved question, which is how can someone think it\u2019s powerful when that person\u2019s ideology is shaped by the ruling class ideology, or the Ideological State Apparatus suggested by Louis Althusser? As Althusser had argued, one of the institutions of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISA) is the cultural ISA including literature, the arts, sports, etc. (Althusser, 11). ISA not only rely on ideology in the private domain but also rely on violence in the public domain, which is the means of Repressive State Apparatus. Therefore, according to Althusser both Ideological State Apparatuses and Repressive State Apparatus imposed the values on Ai\u2019s act of destroying ancient urns, and the state also has a role in shaping the ideology of the viewers. Marcuse also addressed the issue of qualitative change that \u201cwho educates the educators?\u201d, and he believed slaves \u201cmust be shown the \u2018good road\u2019 they are in search of\u201d (Marcuse, 44, 47). Comparing to scholars who believed people are driven to be better, Marcuse is dubious whether \u201cinnate power drive\u201d is one of the human natures (Marcuse, 48). For Marcuse, it is unlikely that either Communist or Capitalist system would allow internal change within the system. Instead, containment of the current system is more viable. Therefore, both material and intellectual growth, which can be the oppositions of the system, will be controlled in order to sustain the system (Marcuse, 48).<\/p>\n<p>Ai did not stop his approach to tradition as he made <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.colby.edu\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/129\/2018\/04\/2017.004_001_fm.jpg\"><em>Colored Vases<\/em><\/a><\/strong> (2006-2008), which is currently on display at Colby Museum of Art. 9 vases which are dated around 5000 to 3000 BC in ancient China were painted with industrial colors that partially cover the original patterns and designs on the pottery. Since Ai did not fully cover the pottery with new paints by leaving some of the original design visible to viewers, there is a union of time that presents on the pottery that depicts both the tradition and modern technique of painting. Though many critics still criticized this work similarly as they did with <em>Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn<\/em> (1995) that Ai was destroying precious artifacts, it does not necessarily mean Ai is against the tradition by using this iconoclastic approach. Instead, he has a complex attitude toward tradition and traditional arts as he said in one of the interviews, \u201cBut within China, the difficulty for independent potters has been to break away from the weight of tradition to use the medium in new ways. In present-day China, the tradition of ceramic history is therefore both an inspiration and a curse, demonstrating once again how important it is for Chinese cultural identity\u201d (Smith, 103). While Ai is affirming the importance of tradition which inspired potters, he also warned the risks of following the traditions, especially for independent potters.<\/p>\n<p>Before investigating the underlying meaning of independent potters in both political and philosophical context and their connection to Marcuse\u2019s description of disruptive characters and outsiders, this research will first discuss the public reception of Ai and his works in China. Then this paper will focus on the pure censorship with the assistance of technology, which was used to censored Ai\u2019s works in China, and its connection to Marcuse\u2019s description of technical rationality.<\/p>\n<p>Ai is always a controversial figure in China due to his alluded criticisms towards the state such as Study of Perspective (1995-2011), which he raised a middle finger to famous landmarks and monuments in the world including the Tiananmen Square, the political center of the state in China. Though he was under the state\u2019s radar, his international reputation as an artist enables him to participate in the design of Beijing National Stadium for Beijing Olympic. From 2008 he started to challenge the state directly by investigating the exact number of students who died in schools and their names in Wenchuan Earthquake in 2008. Neither the local government nor central government disclosed that number to the public and Ai found out there were 5355 students died in their classroom. Though many of the names were still unfound due to the pressure from both students\u2019 parents and the governments, his act challenged the official death tolls issued by the government. As a result, his famous blog and his Sina Weibo account, which is the Chinese version of Twitter, was quickly taken down by the government. He was secretly arrested under the investigation for alleged economic crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Taking down Ai\u2019s Weibo account and later arrest were only parts of the measures taken by the state. Until now in 2019, news about Ai is still blocked in Baidu, Chinese searching engine, and other forms of social platforms, and only news by the state\u2019s agency can be seen on the Internet in China. News agencies that are controlled by the state such as China Daily, People\u2019s Daily and Global Times all published news articles that focus on Ai\u2019s economic crimes and deny any human rights violations. The domestic measures against Ai were not only restricted in publicity but also in politics; receiving pressure from western countries, Ministry of Foreign Affairs defends firmly against all criticisms while the rest of state agencies arrest more activists and lawyers who participated in 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protest. Though it is unclear whether Ai participated in the protest or not, he was arrest only 10 days after the protest, which suggests a possible connection. It is difficult to get an objective and unbiased public view of Ai Weiwei in China due to the above measures, however, the fact that his registered Weibo account reached 10000 followers in 2 hours before censored suggested his popularity in China.<\/p>\n<p>Censorship was never a new thing for China since the earliest record of pure censorship can be dated back to Qin Dynasty (221-206 BC) when Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China decided to burn all the historical records of other nations and bury the scholars who opposed his reign (Goldin, 151). The pure censorship undertaken by the modern Chinese state shared similarity with Qin Shi Huang\u2019s method since both reigns were trying to contain the opposition in order to sustain the ruling ideology, which was Legalism in Qin and socialism with Chinese characteristics in modern China. What differs them, however, is the use of technology by the Chinese state, and that use of technology by the state was crystallized by Marcuse while he was discussing technical rationality.<\/p>\n<p>From Marcuse\u2019s perspective, he would probably agree that China is an example of proving his arguments that there is \u201ca trend toward the consummation of technological rationality, and intensive efforts to contain this trend within the established institutions\u201d (Marcuse, 19). Though Marcuse successfully predicted the political nature of technology that \u201ctechnological rationality reveals its political character as it becomes the great vehicle of better domination\u201d, Marcuse probably would be surprised at how fast China made the transition from passively censoring the oppositional contents to actively using technologies to reinforce its dominant and unchallenged status; as everything is becoming digitalized, even the state starts to rely on the new social platform to indoctrinate its beliefs since fewer people are watching television or reading newspaper (Marcuse, 25). As a result, China is becoming a one-dimensional society that \u201cthe established technical apparatus engulfs the public and private existence in all spheres of society- that is, becomes the medium of control and cohesion in a political universe which incorporates the laboring classes\u201d (Marcuse, 25). The disappearance of the boundary between the private and public domain in one-dimensional society also coincides with Althusser\u2019s Ideological State Apparatus and Repressive State Apparatus. In the case of Chinese society, ISA and RSA are \u201cdouble functioning by repression and by ideology\u201d since technical rationality close the gap between the private domain of ISA and public domain of RSA (Althusser, 13).<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, is there any solution to break this one-dimensional society where everything is rationalized to sustain the ruling ideology and system? Marcuse provided a solution that fixes the issue, which is the disruptive characters such as artists, prostitutes, the great criminals, the outcasts, the rebel-poets, and the fools from another dimension that are not represented by the spiritual, religious and moral heroes (Marcuse, 62). Those figures contrast with another dimension which creates a reality that one-dimensional society does not possess. He further argued that this culture with two dimensionalities are also \u201cpost-technological\u201d, which \u201cthey are the expression of that free and conscious alienation from the established forms of life with which literature and the arts opposed these forms even where they adorned them\u201d (Marcuse, 63).<\/p>\n<p>Does Ai Weiwei fit the requirement of being a disruptive character who can express \u201cfree and consciousness alienation from the established form of life\u201d (Marcuse, 63)? The answer might be both yes and no. He is a disruptive character not only because there is enough evidence which shows that his works are the oppositions of the established forms but also, he is conscious of his mission of being an artist;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think art always has a manifesto\u2026It\u2019s an announcement of the new, an announcement to be part of a new position or a justification, or to identify the possible conditions. I think that\u2019s the most exciting part of the art. Once you make a manifesto you really take some risks. You have to put yourself in a condition. You have to be singled out because it\u2019s the nature of the manifesto\u201d (Smith, 25-26).<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, this quote also made him an outsider since he always needs the audience to appreciate his work. Since arts is only one of the many Ideological State apparatuses including schools, churched, family, communications, etc., how could arts by itself create a second dimensionality to contrast with another dimensionality? Therefore, it is unwise to conclude that Ai is a disruptive character and it remains questionable whether arts and literature can break the one-dimensionality in China.<\/p>\n<p>In conclusion, this paper discussed three artworks done by Ai Weiwei and their connection with Marxism thoughts. <em>Sunflower Seeds<\/em> provides a unique opportunity to re-evaluate the alienation of labor and production as well as Marcuse\u2019s definitions of political and intellectual freedom. <em>Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn<\/em> and <em>Colored Vases<\/em> illustrate Ai\u2019s approach to tradition and Ai\u2019s answer to Marcuse\u2019s qualitative instead of quantitative change. The second half the paper discussed the pure censorship in China and its relationship with Marcuse\u2019 technical rationality. At last the paper tried to apply Marcuse\u2019s solution of one-dimensionality to Ai and Chinese society and concluded that there is no promising result for disruptive characters especially artists to break that one-dimensionality. Due to the limitation of time, this paper did not discuss sexuality, which is one major theme of Ai\u2019s work and its possible connection to Marcuse\u2019s sexual sphere. Besides, Ai\u2019s experience with the Cultural Revolution and his father\u2019s failed literature approach to enlighten his contemporaries might provide an interesting insight into this topic.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">Bibliography<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAi Weiwei Challenges China&#8217;s Government Over Earthquake.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<em>ArtAsiaPacific<\/em>,artasiapacific.com\/Magazine\/64\/AiWeiweiChallengesChinasGovernmentOverEarthquake<\/p>\n<p>Althusser, Louis. \u201cIdeology and Ideological State Apparatuses (Notes towards an Investigation).\u201d <em>Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses<\/em> by Louis Althusser 1969-70,www.marxists.org\/reference\/archive\/althusser\/1970\/ideology.htm.<\/p>\n<p>Chen, Shirong. \u201cChinese Artist Ai Weiwei Held for &#8216;Economic Crimes&#8217;.\u201d BBC News, BBC, 7 Apr. 2011, www.bbc.com\/news\/world-asia-pacific-12994785.<\/p>\n<p><em>CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE&#8217;S REPUBLIC OF CHINA, <\/em>en.people.cn\/constitution\/constitution.html.<\/p>\n<p>Gillette, Maris B. <em>China&#8217;s Porcelain Capital: The Rise, Fall and Reinvention of Ceramics in <\/em><em>Jingdezhen<\/em>. , 2016. Print.<\/p>\n<p>Goldin, Paul R. \u201c<em>The Rise and Fall of the Qin Empire<\/em>&#8220;, in Mair, Victor H.; Steinhardt, Nancy S.; Goldin, Paul R. (eds.), The Hawai&#8217;i Reader in Traditional Chinese Culture, University of Hawai&#8217;i Press, pp. 151\u2013160<\/p>\n<p>Lin, Hang, and Maris Boyd Gillette. <em>Asian Ethnology<\/em>, vol. 77, no. 1\/2, 2018, pp. 418\u2013420.JSTOR, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/26604856\">www.jstor.org\/stable\/26604856<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Marcuse, Herbert. <em>One-Dimensional Man<\/em>. Routledge, 2002.<\/p>\n<p>Moore, Gregg, and Richard Torchia. <em>Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn; Ceramic Works, 5000 BCE<\/em><em>&#8211; 2010 CE<\/em>. Arcadia University Art Gallery, 2010.<\/p>\n<p>Smith, Karen M., et al. <em>Ai Weiwei<\/em>. Phaidon, 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Tate. \u201cThe Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei: Sunflower Seeds \u2013 Exhibition at Tate Modern.\u201d Tate,\u00a0www.tate.org.uk\/whats-on\/tate-modern\/exhibition\/unilever-series\/unilever-series-ai-weiwei-sunflower-seeds.<\/p>\n<p>Vartanian, Hrag, et al. \u201cAi Weiwei Gets Censored on Weibo&#8230;Again.\u201d <em>Hyperallergic<\/em>, 22 June2012, hyperallergic.com\/48636\/ai-weiwei-gets-censored-on-weiboagain\/.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-456\" data-postid=\"456\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-456 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As a contemporary Chinese artist and activist, Ai Weiwei is famous both internationally and domestically. He is usually portrayed as a controversial figure in Mainland China for both his anti-government speech and his art pieces. His work received great attention in the field of art history, however, there is little if any philosophical connections been [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6993,"featured_media":0,"parent":78,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6993"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":593,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/456\/revisions\/593"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/78"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/pl314-spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}