Ai
Weiwei has arguably succeeded Warhol and Picasso as the most recognizable artist
of his times. He has also succeeded Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn as the most
recognizable dissident of our current era. The Mainland Communist regime is
less than thrilled about both scores. Ai’s dissidence (as well as that of his
father before him clearly informs his art, as his curator Cheryl Haines clearly
documents in Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly,
which screens during this year’s DOC NYC.
For
nearly three months, Ai was held incommunicado on bogus charged. He was then
released, but placed under house and his passport was confiscated. It was under
these circumstances Ai challenged Haines to help bring his art to an even
greater international audience. Her idea to mount a site-specific show at the
notorious Alcatraz island prison was fraught with complications, but the
creative possibilities and symbolism fired Ai’s creative imagination. Much like
banned Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi directing over the phone during his house
arrest, Ai planned out the project from his Beijing workshop, relying on Haines
to oversee the implementation on-site.
Clearly,
the scale and historical significance of Alcatraz well-suited Ai’s art—perhaps
better than most museums could. Patrons saw large scale installations that have
been interpreted as tributes to the oppressed Tibetan people and his father,
Chinese modernist poet Ai Qing, who was beaten, publicly humiliated, and
ostracized during the Anti-Rightist Campaign.
Yet,
the clear centerpiece of the show was “Yours Truly” that depicted Lego
portraits of prisoners of conscience held at the time around the world and then
invited patrons to write postcards to any of the subjects whose cases
particularly moved them. However, Haines clearly focus on Chelsea (formerly
Bradley) Manning as the centerpiece of the “Yours Truly” “dissidents,” which is
problematic.
Unlike
Snowden, who seems to have made a good faith effort to protect U.S. human intel
sources, Manning was convicted of essentially committing an “information dump”
that many feared jeopardized Afghan citizens working with coalition forces—and
at least one Ethiopian journalist was reportedly forced to flee his country
(well represented with “Yours Truly” dissidents). Critics argue the government
has not concretely established this causal connection, but doing so publicly could
further expose these very people. The long and the short of it is the case of
Manning is way more complicated than it is represented in the film and
therefore clouds and dilutes its message. Ironically, all the disproportionate
time spent on Manning probably makes Yours
Truly the CCP’s favorite Ai Weiwei documentary.