Event
Ai Weiwei: OverratedPost an Event »
Haines Gallery
April 28 - July 2, 2016Info
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http://www.hainesgallery.com
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(415) 397-8115
Ai Weiwei, "Bicycle Basket with Flowers in Porcelain, 2014, 14.5 x 13.5 x 8 inches
This spring, Haines Gallery presents an exhibition of important works by the internationally renowned Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Entitled Overrated, the exhibition finds the artist grappling with history, challenging authority, and reanimating classical mythology to address the abuses of power that shape our present. The show is the first in Haines Gallery’s redesigned exhibition space, which offers an expanded footprint to create new possibilities for the presentation of artworks. Several of the works in Ai’s exhibition make reference to the travel restrictions and surveillance imposed on the artist following his 2011 detention. With these new works, the artist once again looks back toward traditional forms and materials in order to address contemporary conditions, focusing here on the continuities between the ancient world and our present one—the confused psychology of mythmaking and the political gains made by the invention of monsters. Reflecting on these primal impulses undiminished by modernity, the artist observes, “People have always imagined another world parallel to reality, using creatures to reflect their fantasies and fears. Even today, we are facing a world that we suddenly realize we don’t really understand. We’ve gotten lost on many, many occasions. So the conditions of the human mind have never really changed.” Yet, it is precisely the possibility of change—the potential in each of us to see clearly and without fear—that drives the artist onward.