Ai Weiwei

Executed in 2005.

Wedel Gallery, London
Acquired direcly from the above by the current owner

This work is in generally very good condition overall. The underside of the table has had minor restoration. There is general overall wearing that is inherent to the medium and its age.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

Ai Weiwei looms large as a presence in the Beijing cultural scene, the international art arena, and even worldwide public consciousness—the latter through his conceptualizing of the Beijing Olympic Stadium as a bird's nest, a form made familiar to a billion people during the televised Summer Olympics. Active and influential as artist, architect, urban planner, curator, connoisseur of antiquities, and cultural commentator, he nevertheless exudes quietude: he is the calm at the center of a tornado of activity, having learned how to set things in motion and direct progress so that his presence is not required to complete the activity. Teams of people organize his massive documentary art projects and groups of young architects at his FAKE Design atelier bring his urban development plans to fruition, the labor completed by construction workers devoted to Ai Weiwei's tasks. Master craftsmen realize many of Ai Weiwei's works of art, most notably his porcelain pieces and his works constructed from antique wood and furniture, for example Bowl of Pearls (Lot 706)and Table with Three Legs (Lot 705). Through an economy of personal physical effort he maximizes the impact of conceptual effort. This result is achieved not only through surrounding himself with capable facilitators, but also through an original conceptual economy: he has a remarkable sense of what is possible within any given moment, and of what may come to pass in the future. The result is an appearance of achieving much with minimal or no effort, although in reality he works long hours, his efforts magnified through the work of others. The extent to which his prescience and sheer will power come into play is reflected in the fact that many years ago, when he constructed his house in Caochangdi, it was on the northeastern outskirts of Beijing, in an area of no cultural interest. Soon it will be in the center of Beijing's most important arts district. He achieved this feat through an understanding of local cultural politics, plus hard work and investment in the area, supported by the currency of his personal conviction.

 

Ai Weiwei's modus operandi often involves pairing an underlying goal or meaning with another more obvious or initially apparent goal or meaning that works at cross-purposes with the first. As a variant on this, his works of art frequently posit the existence of opposites within a single framework, catalyzing a rethinking of assumptions. Bowl of Pearls functions in this way. Initially it presents as untold luxury: a pair of huge porcelain bowls containing a half-ton of pearls! The bowls were made to order by skilled craftsmen in Jingdezhen, China's elite and ancient center of pottery production, notable as the major source of fine porcelain produced both for the imperial court and for foreign export. The heaped pearls within the bowls display an alluring luster in shades of white, pink, and peach, the three colors naturally occurring in Chinese freshwater pearls. Close inspection reveals, however, that the pearls are of a low quality: an entire bowlful would be worth less than a single necklace of high-quality freshwater pearls, or even a single particularly large and exquisitely formed pearl. The elitism of porcelain has also been degraded since the heydays of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when it was a luxury good available only to the wealthy; now everyday objects such as toilets are made of porcelain, albeit of a low grade. Bowl of Pearls, which resembles a pair of enlarged bowls of rice, should also be considered in terms of its relationship to a series Ai Weiwei has been working on, concerned with geometry as a component in charting objects of everyday life, including Ton of Tea (2006)—a ton of Pu'er tea compressed into a cube—and Cubic Meter Tables (2006), each table being exactly a cubic meter in volume. Like Ton of Tea and Cubic Meter Tables, the title of Bowl of Pearls describes the object in plain, dispassionate terms. Furthermore the bowls, being a meter in diameter, similarly appear to have been designed according to a mathematical formula rather than pure aesthetic criteria.

 

As an expert connoisseur of antiquities, Ai Weiwei is intrigued by possibilities left unmet or unimagined by artisans of the past pursuing time-honored standards of beauty and utility. Accordingly, he has set challenges for the wood-workers he employs, as well as for the master craftsmen at Jingdezhen. Porcelain produced under his direction ranges from the classic but enlarged form of Bowl of Pearls to such super mundane works as Oil Spills (2006), a group of black, flattish rounds arranged on the ground to resemble blobs of oil, to pieces like Ruyi (2006), named for a scepter traditionally symbolic of good fortune, yet in this instance shaped and gaudily colored after human internal organs. Although put to unorthodox use, the glazes and modeling require great skill. Similarly, the artisans working under Ai Weiwei's direction to produce works from antique furniture are employing techniques honed over centuries to create objects that would have been inconceivable to their forebears, not merely in form but also in intent. His Table with Three Legs was constructed by disassembling a Qing table, and reassembling it using highly sophisticated joinery techniques so that it is no longer functional. As an abstract sculptural form, Table with Three Legs is arresting and beautiful, but beyond that it raises basic—but not easily answered—questions such as "When is a table a table?" and "What constitutes a work of art?"

 

Like many of Ai Weiwei's most engaging works, the impact of the two pieces presented here hinges on their embodiment of a puzzle. Their playful taunting leads to the contemplation of larger issues including the nature of art, and the role of strategy in life and art.