Inadvertently I have just walked off with a tiny part of Tate Modern’s new installation by the renowned Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
After tramping over the seed husks at this morning’s press view, 10 of them found their way into my shoes where thanks to their smooth contours and an unseasonably warm day they stuck firmly to the soles of my feet.
Those who were not wearing open toed shoes, were putting handfuls of the seeds in their pocket, despite Tate staff telling us that while touching the seeds and walking on them in shoes was encouraged, taking them was forbidden.
I love Ai Weiwei’s work because he’s a provocateur whose uneasy relationship with the Chinese authorities is fascinating the more China claims to have become an open society.
His art always surprises, yet compared to the smashing of Hang dynasty urns or the 9,000 backpacks on the exterior of Munich’s Haus der Kunst to mark the children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Sunflower Seeds is strangely unmoving
Instead of something that will keep officials at the Chinese Embassy awake at night, it feels like it has been driven by the need to fill the massive Turbine Hall for eight months.
Of course, the sheer act of making 100 million ceramic seeds, all hand painted, is an astonishing feat, but there is too much artistry and not enough activism.
The story about the people who made the seeds in Jingdezhen, famous for its production of imperial porcelain, is nicely told in an accompanying film. But I can see the Chinese authorities quite liking Sunflower Seeds because it is gentle and apolitical, and shows that Ai – despite his reputation as a troublemaker – is also a bankable global art star. The question is whether he can be both.
The Unilever Series: Ai Weiwei
Sunflower Seeds
Tate Modern 12 October – 2 May
Admission free.
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