Ai WeiWei

Quinn: Hello and welcome back to Pictorial on Relay FM. I’m Quinn Rose. I'm someone who didn't go to art school, but I love learning about art and I'm really excited to share what I learned this week with you.

Betty: Hello, my name is Betty. I am also someone who did not go to art school. However, I have worked at an art gallery for the last eight years and did—there was a show, there was an exhibition with this artist that we're going to be talking about in the art gallery. So I think I might know a couple things, but we'll find out.

Quinn: Yeah. Today we are talking about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei. And he is one of the most prolific living artists. I think this is the first time we're talking about a living artist, which is pretty cool, first of all.

Betty: That’s true. That's a good point.

Quinn: And he is very successful, is one of the people who is actually been recognized and respected in his own time, which is pretty cool. And he has led an extremely interesting life and is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down. So today we're going to be talking about some about his life and about his work and how those two things intersect. And as you mentioned before, this idea was all Betty's because of this exhibit that she saw of his work. So I'm very excited to hear about all the things that you saw, and, your background with his work.

Betty: Yeah. And I guess this is also the first time that we're technically talking about a non-Western artist, I believe. Because we had kind of discussed, we’ve kinda mostly been focusing on artists of European backgrounds, which, I mean, we happen to both live in, you know, English speaking countries. So that kind of tends to be the case. But yes, this artist is, he actually now lives in the United Kingdom. But he is, he is a Chinese artist. So actually, so just a little bit of background, I guess, maybe about me. I am actually also Chinese. I live in Canada, but I actually lived, for the first 10 years of my life I lived in China. I've been in Canada for a long time, but I have actually visited a few times, you know, since I've left there. And even though I'm technically only a Canadian citizen now, I do kind of personally still define myself as like half Chinese and half Canadian. So for me, when I saw Ai Weiwei’s work for the first time, it was very interesting to me cause it was very relatable. Like, you know, obviously he's known to talk about, or in his works he would showcase things that have to do with Chinese history and Chinese tradition. But he's also someone who lived in the West for many years. So there's also that connection there. So the show that I did see was from, I think this was maybe seven, about seven years ago now. It's a show called “Ai Weiwei: According To What?” It's kind of, it was a big show, that had, I think, I don't know if you would call it a retrospective, but it definitely had his work from like his early years in New York in the 80s. And then going through some of his work in the early 2000s and some of his work in like the 2010s. But what was interesting about this show was that it was a, it was during the time when he was, I guess, under semi house arrest, or at least like Beijing arrest, where he wasn't allowed to leave the city. And so when we did the show at the AGO, as well as—the show was curated by a curator from the Hirshorn Museum in Washington, so it was traveling around North America, and he had to like Skype and like, you know, do virtual conference with the museum staff in order to implement. And then some of his studio assistants did physically come to like Canada and the US to help out. But yeah, it was like, it was interesting, even when he spoke at like during the run of the show, we usually have the artists—or if they're living, we usually have them speak and he had to speak like via Skype and stuff like that. So yeah, it was quite interesting. So I guess I was wondering in terms of like, your knowledge of Ai Weiwei or any of the works that you've seen, if you've seen any of his work before, what is kinda your background for Ai Weiwei, if any. 

Quinn: I would say I have very minimal background. So we were just talking about how he was detained in China in 2011. And as I was reading about this, and he was arrested and held for 81 days, and then he was under house arrest slash not allowed to leave Beijing for almost four years. And… because I was reading about this and how is such a huge deal, and there were international protests about it and messages in like the Tate Modern, saying like “free Ai Weiwei” and all this stuff. But I was 14, so I missed most of it. I really–I was not aware of any of this. I have heard of him and a little bit of his work, and especially when I started looking at his most famous works, I was like, oh yeah, like I've seen depictions of these places and like heard of these things. But if like if last week you had walked up to me and said, like, “who's Ai Wewei?” I'd have been like, I dunno. I find that very interesting that like, that he is like so successful and has done so much work all over the world. And yet, until I started sitting down to research him, I was like, ah, I dunno. I don't know if that's a personal failing or if that's a combination of like people just not talking a lot about contemporary artists, especially like contemporary artists who aren’t from like English speaking countries, that kind of thing. So I think it's probably a combination of that and also just me not knowing a lot as always, but yeah. But it was especially the, the series of photographs of him dropping the Han dynasty urn is something that I have seen before, and I was actually reading about really recently, and then it came back up again when I started looking into him and I was like, oh, I was just reading about this.

Betty: Yeah, yeah, that's definitely one of his most famous as well as probably quite controversial works was dropping like, priceless thousand year old Han dynasty urns. So that particular work was also in the According To What? show I saw, there was like the picture of him like holding it and like dropping in and smashing it to pieces. But there were also a bunch of other urns that he had. He would like paint over these urns as well, which is also, you know, pretty controversial because you're painting over these thousand year old artifacts, and he would paint things like Coca-Cola symbols. You know, just like stuff that's totally, you wouldn't necessarily associate with like a thousand year old Chinese artifact.

Quinn: Yeah. He's a bad ass. I want to get back to sort of his life overall, but specifically on this, I read the wildest article about this because in 2014 the exhibit was shown at the Perez Museum in Miami, which you talked about in our art museums episode, and a man there named Maximo Caminero smashed one of the urns as as a form of protest. Interestingly, he was protesting that he thinks that the Perez Museum should be showing local art, not global art, which like, I don't really agree with his form of, with like what he was protesting. But I thought this was fascinating that so literally, it’s set up so you have the pictures of Ai smashing the urn and then you have these painted urns in front of that, that display like on a table and a man smashed one of those. And it's so fascinating because it's like if he had been like, this is a form of performance art, like it would have been very effective because I'm like, oh—because then there's this question of like, well, who is the vandal? Is it the, the man who painted over the Han, the Han dynasty urn, or is it the man who smashed one of the urns? And are we, are we upset because this is a 2000 year old urn that just got smashed? Or are we upset because it's a piece of art that just got smashed by a contemporary artist? Like all of these layers of it, and it's like, is it okay when someone smashes it in the name of art and not okay when someone smashes it in the name of protest, like what are we doing here?

Betty: Yeah. Or are you totally okay with all the smashing and you're just like chaos and destroy everything?

Quinn: Anarchy!

Betty: Yeah. I had actually, I had briefly heard about that, but I actually wasn't aware of that was the reason he smashed the urn. I don't know why. I just assumed he was like, you know, protesting it in the same way that Ai Weiwei was, or maybe he was like, you know, or maybe he could have been protesting Ai Weiwei and be like, well, if he's going to smash priceless urns, I’m going to smash his stuff. Even though it's also urns. So I kind of, I do want to talk about kind of the reason why Ai Weiwei did this, I mean, I'm sure for some people who look at contemporary art, you might just walk by pictures of him smashing and be like, okay, whatever. It's just contemporary art. But there is actually, he does actually give a reason for doing so. So the reason is actually kinda twofold, one of them is he is alluding or in a way protesting the Chinese Cultural Revolution, which was a period of time between the mid sixties and the mid seventies in China where the president slash chairman Mao at the time—he basically started this cultural revolution, which was like an upheaval on traditional society and traditional ideas and traditional monuments and basically traditional everything in China. He wanted to like turn everything upside down and, like lots of crazy things happen. Like people were jailed and beaten up and killed and monuments were destroyed. And that was one of the biggest, the biggest like cultural losses in China was so many old architecture and sculptures and artworks were totally smashed. And obviously at the time and the rationale was these are old ideas and old ideas are bad, so we're going to get rid of them. But, you know, obviously that's a huge cultural loss. But in addition to that protest, he was also commenting on how when the Western forces who invaded China during the Opium Wars—it’s totally escaping me which temple or which architectural work they famously like destroyed, but basically they went to these ancient temples and ancient buildings in Beijing and totally burned them all down, smashed everything, and also looted a lot of the art, a lot of which are still sitting in Western collections today. So yeah, so Ai Weiwei was kind of commenting on how China itself as well as international, historic, people have basically come to China and desecrated and destroyed all of this art. So he's kind of, you know, basically doing the same thing. And in a way, you know, you can kind of be like, if you're protesting that, shouldn't you be like, not doing that? But I mean, I guess, you know, smashing something is a big way of like, really like making a big statement.

Quinn: Yeah. I mean, cause it's this statement against traditionalism as well, and this, the reverence of ancient art over other things. And like people's actual lives and people's lives who were destroyed. And I think this guy is so cool. And I do think this particular work of art, especially with the subsequent smashing that happened to his own art in this exhibit, it puts it in context of such an interesting conversation where he already made this very controversial statement about culture and artwork in conversation with like very real things happening in China. But it's interesting how we as like, the society of curators and artists and whatever decided like, okay, yes, this is art. This is good and correct. And we framed it, we put it on the wall, and then rampant smashing happening outside of that context was like, well, that's vandalism. I didn't read any quotes of what he personally thought about it. I don't think he's probably that precious about the urns themselves, judging on how he treats them, but it's also like… if that man had got up there and filmed himself doing this and declared it an artwork that he was doing himself, would he be able to then put like the film of him smashing the artwork in his own gallery? Right, like what are the layers to this and at what point—is it just a matter of like what we say, like, yes, this is done in the right context and this wasn’t? Like, is it, do we just draw those lines or is there actually any difference between these two things? Or is it just that one person's motivation was better than the other one?

Betty: Yeah, it could, it could be like urn dropping inception. Like someone could smash it and make a video. Someone could smash that videotape and make another video and then it could just keep going as long as we, as long as we think it's art. So—and by we, I mean like not you and I, but like the art establishment.

Quinn: Yeah we as in people, everyone who goes to a museum, you know.

Betty: Yeah. So I kinda, I want to talk about sort of on the topic of cultural revolution, just like a little bit of background on Ai’s own like personal life, personal history. So he actually, he grew up during this time, around the time of the cultural revolution. His father is a, was a famous Chinese poet. His name’s Ai Qing. But he, in 1958 his father was denounced during this thing called the anti-rightist movement, where—I don't even think his father was like a rightist, he was probably more of a leftist, but in any case, at the time, anybody who like Mao’s people didn't like was a rightist. So he was sent to a labor camp in like Northern China, and then eventually they were also sent to Xinjiang territory, Ai Weiwei actually lived there until he was 16. And then they were only able to return back home to Beijing upon chairman Mao's death in 1976, which was the end of the cultural revolution. So he kind of actually had probably a pretty difficult childhood cause growing up in the labor camps was not fun. They were probably very poor conditions that he grew up in. And then also, you know, his father branded as this dissident. And then just kind of growing up in this environment, I'm sure, shaped a lot of things to come.

Quinn: Yeah. It's not hard to see where his motivation for his art comes from. Like—before he himself was detained by the government, I mean, like what got him to that point in the first place was not only is he seeing what's happening to people around them, like he literally grew up like that. He literally grew up at a time that was so unjust to not only like people at large, but like his own personal family. So you can see why he would be… very much set out with a very specific perspective on it. I found it interesting, I was reading about—that people thought he was untouchable because he, he was making dissident art, but he was so popular and so well known that everyone was like, oh, he's safe. And then China was like, you thought.

Betty: You thought he was safe. But he's not. I mean, to be fair, he was probably treated better than a lot of other people who have been dissidents in China have been treated. I mean, at least he's still alive. He was released and actually allowed to travel internationally, and as soon as he got his passport back in 2015 he was like, see ya, and just left and got his pretty much whole family out of there. Ai Weiwei is actually also was like a big supporter of the Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. So he was a guy who he, he basically, he was like a very outspoken pro-democracy thinker. And he was arrested and in prison, and he actually eventually died in prison a few years ago. And so that's kinda what happens to most activists who speak out against the communist party. So the fact that he actually lived does mean that he, you know, probably had it a bit easier than other people, but that's not setting the bar very high.

Quinn: Yeah, it's like he made out better than a lot of people, but still bad. It's all bad. This is my very nuanced politics take.

Betty: It’s terrible, bad, shouldn’t be killing dissidents in prison.

Quinn: I just want to say again how much I love the first amendment in the United States. It's really good, and we should keep it. 

Betty: That's a good idea. So yeah, speaking of the United States, so Ai Weiwei did live in the USA from 1981 to 1993. He actually lived in Philadelphia, San Francisco, as well as New York City. He spent the vast majority of his time in New York and he studied at the Parsons School of Design. And so there he obviously gained exposures to like American artists and he particularly really liked works by like Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol and Jasper Johns. And so he actually, one of the first—I guess official art works he made were altering ready-made objects. So he was definitely like a big Duchamp fan. And so—but not only was he exposed to like Western art, he was definitely also exposed to, you know, like American ideas. And so obviously, you know, he was there during such times as like the AIDS crisis. And you know, he witnessed protests and you know, really kind of opened his eyes to the type of things that you can speak out about in the West as opposed to in China. I think, cause some of the things I wanted to talk about also, it has to do, you know, with the stuff that I saw in According To What and is probably some more of the things that people would be familiar with his work. And I particularly want to kind of explain some of his work that is like, not the easiest to understand if you don't speak Mandarin. So there are some works I'm sure, like you've seen or other people, I remember when the show was on, would walk in and just be like totally confused or would just brush it off as “a, contemporary art,” you know, whatever. But like, I think—not all of Ai Weiwei’s works are like deeply philosophical. Obviously in fact, some of them are just kind of ridiculous, but he, he does actually a lot of his, the things that he does actually, there is intention and there is like a pretty concrete message in a lot of cases. So one of the things that is so he’s known for obviously like, is criticizing the government. But one of his works that I like a lot is a, it's a series of photographs he did, it's called—I think it's called…  Study of Perspective, that he did around the mid nineties. So he basically, just, you know, points his middle finger at like a bunch of monuments, like the Washington Monument or the White House, Tiananmen Square, like he just, he just like flips them off. Which obviously, you know, people are like, okay, you're just flipping off like important monuments. But what he's alluding to there is, he's alluding to how like artists who do like sketching and drawing, like outdoors, what they would do is they would use, you either hold up their pencil or hold up their thumb as a way to calculate like perspective and proportions. So if you are watching an artist in public, you might see them like holding out their thumb or pencil in front of their eyes with their arm kind of stretched out, whenever they're sketching. So he does that just with his middle finger. Cause you don't have to use your thumb or pencil, you can use any finger you want. So that, that's kinda just gives you an idea of like, that's just kind of his thing. Like one of his first art exhibitions after he returned to China… I just like, I love his titles. He did this exhibition call “F— Off” in Beijing. So that one is I think the first time he showcased his droppings of the urns. But it actually featured a lot of other Chinese contemporary artists. One of them is actually one of my favorite artists. His name is Song Dong. The work he has in there as a work called Stamping on Water. Maybe we should do an episode on Song Dong cause he's great. But onto one of the other works that Ai Weiwei did that I just think is hilarious—is so he basically made the sculpture of a llama. So it's like a white porcelain sculpture of a llama, and he named it “Grass Mud Horse,” which is like a trans—or a literal translation of how you say llama in Mandarin. So in Mandarin, llama is called “cǎo ní mǎ (草泥马),” which means like “grass, mud, horse." But it sounds really similar to “f— your mom.” [laughing] So like, so he just, so he has these pictures of him just holding the llama, or like a, or he will write “草泥马" on a, like a whiteboard or blackboard, or he'll just like say it, like dead pan into a camera. So anyway, it's like, it’s just one of those things where like, if you didn't know you know what that word meant in Mandarin, you probably are just like, it's a llama. Like, okay. But so the other thing—I think he had a few kinda like political videos where like he was, he was like literally saying like, "grass, mud, horse, Chinese government” or like, or you know, or grass mud horse, or like “草泥马, motherland.” So it's like, it's very seemingly very, like unpatriotic. But at the same time, his position is like, I'm not unpatriotic. I'm just criticizing the government who may as well be f—ing us.

Quinn: Yeah, this is, they don't really have an equivalent in English. Because like the level of punning in Mandarin is very good and beyond any romance language.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. So yeah it's either, cause the Mandarin is a tonal language. So like confusingly to like non-tonal language speakers like, if you say something in a different tone, it could be mean something totally different. So actually one of the reasons why there's so much, there's so much like punning—one, obviously, because Mandarin is so easy to pun—and also using similar characters. But also because of censorship. So like, you know, whether it's Weebo or online, like in so many different platforms like, the government will literally just ban a certain word. Like, you can't even say Tiananmen in anytime around the anniversary. You can't say like, you know, obviously swear words and stuff. But so people would use these, like alternative words to try to get around the censors. But what's funny is in the censors will then start banning even the replacement words. So they'll ban like a totally just non-offensive or seemingly non-offensive words like river crab. And you're just like, what? So, yeah, it kind of creates this really like hilarious culture in a way. But yeah, he did also sculpt this huge pile of porcelain sculptures of river crabs as well. And then, I believe it was in like 2009, his—some of his fans had a river crab feast at his Shanghai studios, just before it got torn down by the officials cause they didn't like him. So to like Western, or non-Mandarin speakers, you might be like, what is the significance of a river crab? And so, essentially the river crab in Mandarin is pronounced “hé xiè (河蟹),” which actually sounds exactly the same as the word harmony. And so the reason this is like important is because, back in the 2010s, there was a, like a famous Chinese communist party slogan, quote “realization of a harmonious society,” which was kind of like the party’s… like a slogan for a bunch of their policies that's like officially touted by the president at the time, President Hu, but a lot of people basically like just thought it, you know, it was a real, it was kind of a failed policy, cause you know, there were, there were always trying to just be like very harmonious, very PC, but it just turned out to be censorship. So people would start to criticize, so they would criticize the harmonious policy, but then of course, officials just banned the word harmony or harmonious to keep people from protesting the policies. So then people started to use “river crab" as a way to criticize the policy. So then they banned the words river crabs. So I think eventually you just can't say any words on Chinese internet anymore cause they’ll just ban every single word possible.

Quinn: And obviously this podcast is banned. We are, we've already been banned because we mentioned Chinese art two episodes ago. So like, we're just really diving right in on this. We don't want anyone in China to be able hear this podcast. 

Betty: Yeah, exactly. Unless you have a VPN, which might also be banned.

Quinn: VPN! Yeah.

Betty: But anyway, so yeah, that's just kind of an overview of some of his more punny works. But so I was, the one thing I was wondering about is, I was wondering if you've heard about his artworks surrounding the 2008 earthquakes in China?

Quinn: Well, this is what got him really in trouble, wasn't it? 

Betty: Yeah, definitely. So I think, yeah, he did a bunch of stuff and you've probably either seen or heard of it, like one that was really famous is he gathered backpacks from students, backpacks that were left in the earthquake and he kinda made like these big quilts. One I think was displayed in Germany, he made a big quilt that's basically on the side of the building out of, like dispose—or sorry, out of backpacks that he found at the earthquake. And the quotes ended up being this passage in Mandarin that basically said “she lived happily for seven years,” which was the quote of one of the mothers who lost her daughter, I believe, in the earthquake—in 2008 earthquakes in Sichuan. And so, anyway, so of course there was a huge earthquake in China in Sichuan province in 2008. And I think tens of thousands of people died in that earthquake. And a lot of it—the people who died were students in schools because most of the schools were built with like completely shoddy construction and the Chinese call it “tofu construction,” like you might, it might as well be made of tofu. Except if it was made out of tofu and fell over, it wouldn't actually hurt you very much cause it's soft. But unfortunately it was concrete and steel. So yeah, a lot of the people who perished in the earthquake were kids. And I mean, sort of to add to how horrible it is to like lose your child, most parents in China only have one kid cause you're only allowed to have one kid. So most of these families lost their only child. So anyway, terribly sad. But government basically covered it all up, like, surprise. So the backpack is an example of the work he did. Another work he did is called Straight, which—so he salvaged the steel rebars from the concrete out of the rubble. And he, I mean, he didn't do it just himself. His assistants also helped, obviously, and they took the steel rebars and they straightened all of them, and then they start—they piled them on the floor into this huge sculpture that looks like undulating, like mountain ranges. And an interesting fact about that artwork is that the artwork is so heavy, I think in like most museums that display it, they can only put it on like the ground floor or something. And in the AGO we did have it on the second floor and we actually had to get structural engineers to come in and like, we had to get contractors to x-ray the floor slabs and get the engineers to assess like where on the second floor is there the most support in actually putting this piece of artwork, cause otherwise it would have fallen through the floor and destroyed our gallery, which might not have been good. That was another one. But yeah, the most famous work he did was a series of work. It's called Remembrance. So he also collected the names of over 5,000 students who died during the earthquake and put it into like a, like an Excel spreadsheet and basically got people all over the internet to like send in their readings of the names. And then all over the world, there were actually performances of the reading of the names, and I actually participated in 2013 in the reading in Toronto. So they called out to like Mandarin and Cantonese speakers. And so I showed up and actually read I think 20 of the names. A lot of people were reading. They were like crying while they were reading, like, and we were standing in front of a wall of the names all printed on like, up and down the wall. And they were like obviously like thousands of names. And, yeah, it was really emotional. But anyway, so, this basically is what got him in trouble. So he obviously went to the earthquakes sites to salvage all this material. He also did this investigation, which the officials were trying to cover up. And the biggest thing that actually did happen to him was he was actually trying to testify for another activist. His name is Tan Zuoren, and he was another person who was like trying to investigate the, what happened during the earthquakes and so then, he was arrested and also jailed. And Ai was trying to testify for him, but before he could appear in court, police showed up in his hotel room and just beat the crap out of him. Or I think they stopped him in the elevator. And then, and he actually famously like tweeted a picture. He took a picture in the elevator mirror and the police were reflected in the mirror. And then he ended up having like some sort of brain hemorrhaging that happened later on. And he, when he was in Germany, had to have emergency surgery. And he had like headaches and stuff like that. And so he actually, he tried to make like a complaint at the police station for the officers that beat him up. But that obviously didn't go anywhere. So yeah, so he was like obviously super vocal about not only what happened to the kids, but also like him getting beaten by the police. And so, in 2011, the police in Beijing was like alright, we're going to arrest you now. But surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, he was never actually charged with doing anything in Sichuan like whether it's the police thing or the investigation to the earthquakes, like he was charged with tax evasion. So, you know.

Quinn: Yup. Just, just any excuse.

Betty: Yeah, exactly. I even remember, I think I saw a documentary—so he led later on, I think he was, he had to pay back like millions and millions of dollars in like, you know, supposed tax evasion and people would just, of course, like his fans started donating money to him and people would just throw like hundred dollars bills over his fence in his studio in Beijing. And he's just like, okay, well thanks. Now I can pay this off and they're going to charge me with something else, I'm sure.

Quinn: It is very lucky and a lot to do with his fame as an artist. And also luck that he was eventually able to leave China and moved to Germany. It's sad because I was reading an article—an interview that he gave really recently and they said, well, would you ever want to go back to China? And he was like, yeah, my mom's in China, and I haven't seen her in a long time, but that he doesn't know if he can ever go back without being detained. So I was like, damn, poor Ai Weiwei.

Betty: Yeah that’s pretty sad. Well, I'm hoping this podcast doesn't lead to me not being able to visit my family, but we'll find out.

Quinn: I'm pretty sure we’re—this is not going to reach the radar of the Chinese government, but if it does, I am officially sorry.

Betty: Not, that's okay. Well, you know, what are you going to do? But I don't think I'm important enough anyway, so that's okay. So, yeah, I just, I do think like, overall he's definitely like a very, like he's definitely a very like outrageous and that's kind of his shtick. And that obviously ticks off a lot of people. I have like talked to, you know, Chinese people and asked them, or just anecdotally like what they think of him. And like, most people I talked to, like they don't, they obviously don't like, dislike him in a way that like, you know, party officials would. But I think a lot of people just think of him as like, kind of—they just think he's like, he’s just like super gross, I guess. Because he's like in China, he's known for like, he also at one point got charged with like pornography, cause you know, he did all these like nude pictures of himself and other people. And you know, obviously he just calls it like art, it’s nude photography. And he flips off the Tiananmen, and so people kind of just think, yeah, you know, he's just kind of like a hooligan, you know, he’s was kinda gross. And so, yeah, I think people like don't like him because of that. But I do, I think one thing, so like kind of before we wrap up, I do want to turn people's attention to, in terms of his art, he has obviously known for these things, you know, like the grass mud horse and stuff like that. But some of his artwork is actually like really beautiful and really elegant. One of my favorite works of his is actually called Grapes. He put together, he does ready mades and he likes to modify furniture and he'll, so he took like hundreds of round old, like probably Ching dynasty stools. And he just like, nailed them together and then he chained them together in a way that looked like grapes, like if you look at it from far away. And it's funny cause when I'm, I was in LA recently and I saw one of his works and again, he like modified a bunch of chairs and he, like he likes to put furniture together. And it's almost like I can just tell when Ai Weiwei work is without even looking at a label. Cause like whenever I see like furniture that's like being smashed together, but in kind of like really like beautiful, elegant ways it's like almost definitely him. So I would, I would encourage people to look into like some of the more subtle art works that he's done. I think he has another one. I can't remember the name, but it's called—oh, it's called a Ton of Tea, which he just like, basically makes like a cube of tea. And it kind of reminds me of like, minimalist works, like Donald Judd works, where it's just like a really simple metal cube, except instead of making it out of metal, he makes it out of like traditional Pur Er Chinese tea. So he just like, he's definitely has like the inspirations of like a minimalist American artist and does these like really elegant woodworking type of works. So like I would encourage people to check that out as well, in addition to the naked photos.

Quinn: Yeah, I mean, he's a prolific artist and he’s—I think it's really cool on how many different mediums that he's worked on, how many different styles, and obviously he's gotten sort of the most attention for these like huge scale or super controversial things, but he also has, as you were talking about, like done these really beautiful things as well. As my sort of concluding thought on him, I think he's such a quintessential contemporary artist in that a lot of the work he does like is obnoxious and he does kind of seem like a hooligan sometimes, as you were talking about. And most of the stuff that he does doesn't seem… like it's very nontraditional. And it’s, a lot of this stuff is just like, well, what's that? It's this is, this isn’t art. Like that, that kind of thing I think is a reaction that a lot of people could have to do his kind of art. But everything that he does is so imbued with meaning. Like it's so thought out, it’s incredibly political, like he said that all the art he makes is political. And it comes from these different meanings and history, and inspirations from different artists and cultures and all this kind of thing. And so—and that doesn't mean you have to like it or you have to like be into it or all that kind of thing. But I, but I do think it's cool that something that can seem like really simple or just created to like freak people out on the surface does have such a specific message and is trying to achieve something in a way that's not immediately obvious. 

Betty: Yeah, for sure. I definitely think that, like, yeah, even just to separate the fact that he's, you know, obviously calling on Chinese tradition, but really like, he is a contemporary artist and they're like, I think he's, he is a really great example of why we shouldn't just like dismiss contemporary art as just like, oh, you know, it's just a square box, or it's just, you know, a piece of wood on a wall. His work should encourage us to like, look more closely and look deeper into these works and to try to, you know, figure out whether its context or history or message or a meaning. Or, you know, or even including appreciating like the beauty of the work. But yeah, I definitely think, he’s, he is a really great example of how we just, we should, we should look deeper into contemporary art.

Quinn: I think it's fair to say that he gets the Pictorial stamp of approval cause that's what he was really waiting for in his career. 

Betty: Oh, well, of course.

Quinn: As someone who is like very actively still making work, and is still… and still has a lot to say in this moment of time, I'm very excited to see what he does next and I hope to be able to go to an exhibit of his new work sometime in the future. That'd be really cool. Thank you all so much for listening to this episode of Pictorial. You can find our show notes at relay.fm/pictorial and you can follow us on Twitter or Instagram @PictorialPod. You can also follow me on Twitter or Instagram @aspiringrobotfm.

Betty: And additionally, we also upload these episodes to a YouTube where we will edit in photos of pictures of what we talk about during the podcast. So please check us out on YouTube as well at Pictorial podcast. And you can also follow me on Twitter and Instagram @articulationsV and I am also on YouTube as ARTiculations.

Quinn: Let's see if we get this one flagged for his pornographic art.

Betty: Most likely. We’ll see.

Quinn: Thanks for listening, art enthusiasts!