Where I was born, in the romanian city of Craiova, I remember everyone eating sunflower seeds in front of their doorstep and then spitting the shells on the floor in a manner I was never able to do myself, and leaving them all over the city! Still now, when I walk around and I see sunflower leftovers on the streets, I know a romanian was there!
So when I first saw the new exhibition at the Turbine Hall in London, thats where my thoughts went...I suppose to each one of us, according to our background and stories, images mean different things!
So the conceptual chinese artist Ai Weiwei in his installation of millions of hand-made sunflower seeds shows the work of a hundred skilled workers from the Chinese city of Jingdezhen employed to hand craft and paint the millions of tiny porcelain objects that make up Sunflower Seeds.
The work is presenting the contradiction between the casual way visitors walk on the ‘seeds’ compared with the time and effort put into making them!
The exhibition will be on at Tate Modern until 2 May, 2011.
http://www.tate.org.uk/
you're not allowed to walk on it anymore :( I went to see it Thursday and there were signs up saying it was 'closed for maintenence' but they've since announced it's closed permanently coz they're worried about the dust being produced by the seeds being ground down as they're walked on. really disappointing but for the artist aswell i imagine.
ReplyDelete