Reviews of Habibi Funk 031, Kayatibu, and The Good Ones
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War-games: no way way
SIMON DUFF explores the latest offering of the Chinese artist in exile AI WEI WEI
Ai Wei Wei, Wheatfield With Crows, 2024
[©Ai Weiwei Studio/Courtesy of Lisson Gallery London]
SIMON DUFF relishes the cross contamination of Damien Hirst’s greatest hits by street artists from France and the US
In view of the grooming gangs inquiry, SIMON PARSONS feels the relevance of this powerful examination of trauma suffered at Medomsley Youth Detention Centre
JOHN GREEN doubts the motivations of a US war photographer who never questions why, or for whom, she is producing images of imperialist conflict
MARIA DUARTE reviews Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Hedda, The Mastermind, and Regretting You
TONY CONWAY welcomes a thrilling and concise history of Hope not Hate, that is also a manual full of tactical advice
PAUL DONOVAN welcomes an inspiring account of living with deafness that has important lessons for the treatment of deaf people in today’s UK
Ai Weiwei, A New Chapter
Lisson Gallery, London
DESPITE the obvious reservations about his anti-Chinese propaganda, exiled artist Ai Weiwei’s new work raises awkward questions around his own methods of production.
His Tate Modern 2010 installation Sunflower Seeds consisted of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but all unique. The life-sized sunflower seed husks were intricately hand-crafted in porcelain, each seed individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Some 100 million seeds formed a seemingly infinite landscape.
As much as a celebration of the work itself, the means of production was the central notion to the work, and the extent of the likely exploitative nature of that was questionable.
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