I’m back writing about Ai Weiwei, which isn’t what I particularly want to be doing, but as he seems to be the only Chinese artist known or cared about by a wider (Western) audience, here we are. This continued, and likely mutually beneficial, publicity for AWW has led to yet another documentary focusing on the trials and tribulations — well, mostly the trials — of him as he continues to work as an artist and professional dissident. Less than two years since the release of Alison Klayman’s comprehensive and engaging Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, filmmaker Andreas Johnsen has decided the time is ripe for the public to be updated on the further adventures of Weiwei beyond his own very active engagement with his fans via Twitter, Instagram, and other virtual platforms.

The product, Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case, has been declared by many to be a documentary sequel (or some awkward portmanteau to that effect), and it does indeed pick up almost exactly where Never Sorry left off, with footage of AWW returning home after his release from prison. The film follows Ai’s attempts to seek answers and justice after his detention in 2011, when he was held for 81 days before being charged with the dubious offense of tax fraud. In order to retain both his good name and hold the Chinese government to its stated standard of judicial proceedings, Ai seeks to prove his innocence even as his lawyers are threatened and abandon his case, he is kept under house arrest and secretly tailed, and his art practice is all but completely shut down.

Those seeking insight into Ai’s current work as an artist will mostly be disappointed: this documentary is much more the chronicle of a censured political activist than the typical artist bio-doc that Never Sorry was. Johnsen expects, and probably rightly so, that the audience will be familiar with Ai’s background — his early life and history, his time in New York, his rise to international fame – and instead focuses solely on AWW’s daily life under house arrest. Johnsen paints the picture of a despondent and frustrated man: Ai seems crushed by boredom and exasperated with his inability to create. While his struggle is undeniably an important aspect of his life, it does make for somewhat monotonous viewing. The audience feels, perhaps by design, as trapped in the doldrums as Weiwei. However, Johnsen fails to convey both the artist’s urgent sense of purpose and creeping fear that dogs him, and so misses the opportunity to shake us out of our complacent stupor and into supportive action.

But one aspect of The Fake Case that feels fresh and stands out is its emphasis on Ai’s family life: his mutually supportive relationship with his mother and his bond and protective feelings toward his son, Ai Lao. Although we met Lao briefly in Never Sorry, Johnsen dedicates much more time to scenes of father and son: splashing in a pool, playing in an amusement park, and meeting neighborhood pets. Johnsen’s focus on this aspect of Ai’s life since arrest underscores not only the danger that looms over all of those standing by him, but also the uncertain future of Lao and his contemporaries who have been directly affected by oppression. The portrait of Ai Weiwei as a father is an unexpected one, and throws into sharper relief the personal sacrifices he faces by continuing to antagonize the government.

Although not an especially gripping film, especially because the chronicle of events from two and three years ago already seems woefully behind the times, fresh developments in Ai’s case and work are being seen and discussed in real time, so there are possible benefits to this seemingly unnecessary sequel. If The Fake Case is able to bring more light to not only Ai’s plight but those of other Chinese artists and their supporters who have been attacked, then it just might be worth the retread. Johnsen hopes to have secret screenings of the film in China if he is able to reenter the country, and Ai Weiwei, defiant as ever, has volunteered to host them. The Beijing crowd should listen for whisperings about that in the near future.

Hilary Chassé is a Brooklyn-based writer and archivist with a Masters in Chinese Art History. Follow her @chasseh

We publicized a Kickstarter on April 1 of a 10-minute dystopian sci-fi film set in Beijing by TED Talks director Jason Wishnow that was advertised as “starring” Ai Weiwei. It blew past its $33,000 goal in no time, probably thanks to the attention that Ai Weiwei — China’s most visible artist — garners around the world. But now the Kickstarter has been removed and the preview for the movie, The Sandstorm, is only available on YouTube. What gives?

The Washington Post explains:

But rather than spark a debate about resources and government authority, the project has blown up into a dispute over copyright and crowdfunding, as Ai downplayed his role in the film Monday. Through his representatives, Ai claimed he’d agreed only to a small part in the movie.

The Kickstarter campaign promoting “The Sandstorm” goes much further, portraying Ai as the star. The crowdfunding page — which has been taken down, but a cached version is available here — explains how the filmmaker, Jason Wishnow, secretly recruited Ai to a two-week production session during which the crew “used code names and ever-shifting modes of communication, tapping cloak-and-dagger pulp-fiction playbooks” to avoid alerting Chinese authorities to their work.

“When the air is toxic and your lead actor is under surveillance, you make a SHORT film and you shoot it FAST,” the project page reads.

Despite now being blocked from public view, the Kickstarter has already exceeded its $33,000 goal by more than $60,000. That’s little comfort to Ai, though, who accuses Wishnow of stealing his name and image — as well as photos Ai posted to Instagram — to promote the movie.

Ai Weiwei’s studio sent a letter to Wishnow — via Twitter, of course — that asks, among other things, for a public apology “acknowledging that you have engaged in the activities discussed above without Ai Weiwei’s consent and therefore misled potential providers of funds to your project.” You can read the full letter here.

We’re not sure why it took 30 days for Ai’s studio to protest so harshly against Wishnow and company. But now we also wonder about the director’s motives, specifically why he bothered to make a dystopian sci-fi flick in Beijing. Was it just for some viral attention? Wishnow appears to have the cache to produce something bigger, on the right side of legitimate — heck, The Sandstorm employed Wong Kar-wai cinematographer Christopher Doyle – so why risk blowing future opportunities to do work in China by producing a drive-by short about pollution?

Timely enough, The L Magazine recently published an article called, “The Problem of Using Ai Weiwei to Sell Crap.” The Sandstorm may actually be an entertaining film, possibly even an important one. But if the people involved really believed that, they should have marketed it as thus instead of using Ai Weiwei for cheap heat.

UPDATE:

Ai Weiwei Kickstarter movie campaign back online – with groveling apology https://t.co/W0vM90MRUF @beijingcream

— Mark Dreyer (@DreyerChina) June 6, 2014

PEN America organized a protest called “Take a Stand for Free Expression in China: An Evening of Literary Protest” last Thursday, April 10, in front of the Brooklyn Public Library in New York. Ai Weiwei was more or less the face of the event, attended by several hundreds of people / bored Brooklynites, which was also had the purpose of raising awareness of persecuted Chinese writers. Art Daily reports that Ai Weiwei appeared via video message to thank his supporters. Surely he would’ve preferred to appear in person, but he still doesn’t have his passport — never has since his 81-day Beijing detention in 2011 for tax evasion.

Ai’s comments, via Art Daily:

“As an artist, I think freedom of expression is an essential foundation for any kind of activity,” said Ai, his larger-than-life image hovering on the Brooklyn Museum wall. “Freedom of expression is to encourage every individual to question authority, and to become creative, so these are essential values for artists to protect and to fight for.” The artist ended his video message with a strong statement: “We have to encourage individuals to become a part of the society through free expression … to bare responsibility and to contribute our ideas, our thinking about what kind of society we live in, and what kind of future we will have.”

And here’s a promotional portrait of Ai Weiwei that American artist Shepard Fairey created in his “Obey Giant” style:

Say what you want about his art and activism, but Ai Weiwei isn’t boring, and certainly not afraid of trying new things. In his latest venture, he makes his acting debut as the star of a sci-fi short film called The Sand Storm, shot this past winter in Beijing during particularly smoggy days. Yes, the story is dystopic.

The 10-minute film is currently seeking support on Kickstarter. As the writer and director, New York-based Jason Wishnow (filmmaker behind TED Talks), describes it, The Sand Storm is a “dystopian science fiction film set in the not-too-distant future.” Ai Weiwei plays a smuggler in a waterless world. Notably, the movie was shot by Christopher Doyle, famous for his cinematography in the Wang Kar-wai classics In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express (and Zhang Yimou’s Hero). The short film apparently also features an original score by a 28-piece orchestra recorded in a studio at Abbey Road.

All the filming is complete, but the team needs $33,000 for postproduction work. (Wishnow: “We needed to keep the film a secret and didn’t want anything sabotaged.”) The Kickstarter was just launched, but it’s already 23 percent to its goal (32 days remaining). Something tells us a few @aiww tweets are all that’s needed to push it past $33,000, but go make a donation if you’re the kind for perks (screening invites and such).

Or, you know, cynically wait for our review. We hope it’s better than The Divine Comedy.

a secret sci-fi film shot in China • 沙尘暴 starring Ai Wei Wei (Kickstarter)

UPDATE, 4/30, 12:43 pm: The Kickstarter has been pulled due to objections from Ai Weiwei. The trailer can only now be found on YouTube:

UPDATE:

Ai Weiwei Kickstarter movie campaign back online – with groveling apology https://t.co/W0vM90MRUF @beijingcream

— Mark Dreyer (@DreyerChina) June 6, 2014

The definition of irony has always been difficult to pin down, even for the most seasoned of wordsmiths, but here’s an attempt through example: an artist who achieved fame by defacing or destroying other artists’ work sees one of his defaced works defaced by another artist.

The famous artist is Ai Weiwei, whose 1995 photographic triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn is undoubtedly one of the pieces that propelled him to international art world fame and fortune. This is a piece that does exactly what it proclaims: it portrays Ai deliberately smashing a nearly 2,000-year-old ceramic funerary jar (in fact, he had to destroy two, as the photographer missed the crucial mid-air shot the first time).

On February 16, Miami-based artist Maximo Caminero walked into the Perez Art Museum, which is currently hosting Ai’s traveling exhibition Ai Weiwei: According to What, picked up one of Ai’s vases, and dropped it as a protest for the museum’s focus on international artists in lieu of local ones. He was staring at Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn on the wall while he did so.

An element to bear in mind when considering the modern controversy is that Ai purchased the artworks he used for his triptych, as well as the vases at Perez Art Museum (which he painted in lurid colors or with corporate logos). (Whether or not the purchaser of a historically significant artwork has a responsibility to maintain its condition is outside the purview of this article.) But Caminero faces a problem that Ai never had to when he destroyed the work of an anonymous craftsman from the second century BC: Caminero is being charged with criminal mischief and faces up to five years in prison. He’s about to discover the repercussions that surround demolishing the work of a living and extremely financially successful artist.

It is just this juxtaposition of anonymity versus global art-world superstardom that rankles me the most. Chinese artists and patrons have a long history of exploiting anonymous artisans for mass production of ceramics, particularly those working in Jingdezhen kilns since the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), metalworking, and even painting, such as the court painters who created the monumental trompe l’oeil silk paintings for the early Qing Dynasty emperors. The compensation and artistic merit awarded to these craftsmen versus the literati painters and calligraphers that enjoyed lucrative patronage from the elite are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The modern system of artistic output for many contemporary Chinese artists relies on a similar system (or at least more similar than many would care to admit), particularly for artists working with installation, where a troupe of anonymous workers realize the designs of an artist but are excluded from any museum/gallery credit or future monetary claims on the work. This system, often employed by Ai (who even made a point of using the artisans in Jingdezhen for a recent ceramic sculpture, perhaps as meta-commentary on this issue), raises questions about just what creative ownership means in the contemporary art world.

The Miami controversy doesn’t address these more complex issues of studio creation practices, but rather the very simple issue of Ai stating that he doesn’t support artists destroying other artists’ works while seeming blissfully unaware that this is exactly what he has done, several dozen times over. Is an artist’s work only worth respecting only if he is still alive to make a fuss over its wanton destruction? Is a provocative piece about art’s fragility and worth only acceptable if the artist has an international retinue of curators and collectors backing them?

Of course, Ai couldn’t publicly endorse this act of vandalism without tacitly allowing further damage to his pieces, but I hope the incident has given both him and other artists pause and will lead to a fruitful conversation about the art world’s complicity in the wrecking of ancient works, as well as their complacency in perpetuating a modern invisible artisan studio system.

Hilary Chassé is a Brooklyn-based writer with a Masters in Chinese Art History. Follow her @chasseh

Ai Weiwei has managed to upset and alienate many groups during his reign as China’s national gadfly, particularly within the past five years, a period in which the 55-year-old’s public profile has swelled to supernova proportions. A respondent brought up the “Ai Weiwei Effect” in last month’s roundup of critical reactions to Ai Weiwei and Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s song “Dumbass,” and on the eve of the release of The Divine Comedy – the six-song album on which Dumbass appears — it’s worth asking again: how do we perform aesthetic analysis of the outspoken artist-cum-activist’s work when our perceptions are so colored by sentiment?

Saint Ai, Patron Saint of the Persecuted

Ai’s celebrity status is self-perpetuating and now beyond his control. Short of sealing himself off and banishing all visitors, journalists, and collaborators from his studio while refusing to create and promote — creating and promoting generally being what creative people do — I assume he can’t control who writes about him, who gives him public shout-outs, and how his art will be interpreted by a Western public that still views China, at best, as a cypher, and at worst as a gray-colored dystopia rife with baby-aborting drones and entire cities of enslaved assembly-line workers.

The accusations of shameless headline-seeking behavior will always be there, even as Ai just does what he’s always done. This is, after all, the guy who co-organized an avant-garde exhibition, Fuck Off, that he packed with transgressive content from dozens of domestic artists, including a piece by Zhu Yu called “Eating People,” a depiction of simulated cannibalism that continues to surface online a decade later as anti-Chinese propaganda, and another earlier piece featuring Ai himself famously hurling an ancient vase to the ground as a call to civic action.

We’re talking about the guy who worked with a Swiss design firm in creating the modern-day symbol of an ascendant China, the Bird’s Nest, only to later dismiss the Olympics entirely as a “fake smile” to the world, and the guy who made it his mission to hold authorities responsible for the shoddy construction that led to 5,200 dead schoolchildren after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. He had his first major retrospective in North America, According to What?, at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC last fall — it’s currently parked in Indianapolis — which has generated extra press because Chinese authorities have forbidden him to attend.

Point is: Ai has always been controversial. His visibility, our perceptions of celebrity, a buffoonish party-state, and the now-ubiquitous presence of social media is the problem — not the man, and certainly not how he chooses to express himself.

A large part of his visibility, ironically, may be due to the authorities’ revocation of his passport, a counterproductive measure that has forced the artist to engage the public online through social media and microblogging platforms that — as Tao noted last month after an impromptu haircut became a public event that even the venerable James Fallows couldn’t resist gushing about — reinforce the cult and farce of celebrity and lend newsworthy status to even the most mundane activities.

Perhaps if the country’s knuckle-dragging simpletons didn’t engage in their perennial goon-squad tactics — shuttering Ai’s blog, harassing and arresting his assistants, administering cerebral hemorrhage, tearing down his Shanghai studio, among other heavy-handed measures — then he wouldn’t have settled so comfortably into his role as Saint Ai, the Romantic Dissident. He wouldn’t be the guy you reflexively sneer at whenever he presents another creative endeavor.

China has a way of alienating everyone, including itself.

Saint Ai, Patron Saint of Stinging Rebuke

Constant media presence comes with blowback. Domestic critics, artists, writers, and others in the country’s creative community often decry the Beijing-born son of a persecuted poet for his vacuum-like effect when it comes to representing the mainland Chinese art scene to the rest of the world; for artificially driving up prices, denying others their moment in the sun, and unnecessarily baiting the authorities, which some say leads to increased scrutiny on a community that is already viewed with suspicion.

The near-consensus among those in China’s expatriate community — or at least the slice that’s plugged into English-language media — is that Ai is a hack who relishes in concocting headline-grabbing PR stunts with questionable artistic merit: whether it’s viral video spoofs, magazine covers, or wry photographs, Ai can do no right. Even the sheer mention of his name by visiting public figures results in withering public scorn.

These people, who endlessly criticize without creating anything of value themselves, also lambaste him for his role as the international media’s go-to guy for quotes on Chinese current events, a gilded position that many argue oversimplifies the complex problems the country faces and feeds lazy Western journalists a distorted narrative of modern China.

And the authorities, lest we forget, remain uncomfortable with Ai’s post-Olympic role as an international celebrity activist calling for the state to rectify its human rights abuses. They continue to assail him with a gauntlet of questionable legal challenges, from accusations of economic malfeasance to crimes against morality, and hold his passport. Ai’s not technically under house arrest, but usually he’s not given much reason to leave his Caochangdi compound.

Saint Ai, the Musician

Zuoxiao Zuzhou has impeccable credentials in the country’s music scene — he’s a well-respected founding father who helped popularize avant-garde rock music in the early-1990s with his band No — so it’s somewhat a musical coup for Ai’s team that Zuoxiao would agree to produce and write the music for The Divine Comedy.

But after listening to the record several times, I still wonder what Ai’s and Zuoxiao’s goals were. If it’s just two friends working together to explore a new creative medium, then we have a success. As a platform for catharsis, working through grueling psychological issues from detention, it’s pretty good. And as a vessel from which to reach a new audience — say, Zuoxiao fans who don’t care about politics — it also works, and I hope that some of Ai’s starpower will rub off on the country’s rock scene and lead to positive developments for everyone involved.

But if Ai intended The Divine Comedy to be a groundbreaking musical statement that rivals what the country’s all-star musical talent has been doing for the past decade, then… maybe not. Domestic acts like Duck Fight Goose, Hedgehog, Carsick Cars, and PK-14 — four rock bands I consider to be the country’s most durable and influential — have him easily beat.

And guess what? That’s okay. I don’t think this record is an attempt to steer national discussion. “Each song is a different take of Ai’s newfound channel for expression through music,” the press release for The Divine Comedy helpfully states, before explaining that the album’s songs fall into three categories: commentaries on current events, documentations of real dialogues, and personal reflections. Aside from a modest two-sentence bio (“Ai Weiwei is an artist and his work encompasses diverse fields including fine art, curating, architecture, design and social criticism. He is a fierce defender of freedom of expression and is always seeking new ways to communicate with the public”) and logistical information as to where to purchase the record — his website, iTunes, and all major online music retailers, in case you’re interested — there’s nothing else.

No weighty proclamations or celebrity endorsements or saucy pull quotes or a multipage hagiography or multimedia ad campaigns, but rather a standard, even minimalist press release announcing to the world that Saint Ai the Creator has given birth to another new artistic thing.

Many domestic pop culture critics will undoubtedly feel frustrated that this record will be the most covered rock music to come out of mainland China this year. While that may be true, it’s predicated on a logical fallacy: Ai can’t be blamed that this country’s independent record labels — the companies who have the economic resources and cultural influence to disseminate this music to Western audiences — tend to be mismanaged, short-sighted, and engage in virtually zero international outreach.

And while the country has no shortage of dedicated participants involved in the music biz — musicians, promoters, writers, venue managers, bloggers, DIY labels, retailers, graphic designers, and other starry-eyed idealists — the overwhelming majority of them don’t have the resources to promote this bubbling cauldron of creativity outside of the country, which is where you need to focus your attention if you want any influential press coverage that’ll generate sustained international interest in your band of choice.

Maybe Ai can help with that.

The record’s opening track, “Just Climb the Wall,” was surprising: I didn’t expect to hear that distinctive spoken-word snarl overlaid upon a swirling, swing-influenced stomp with bold, declarative piano tones clashing in the background like ivory thunderclaps, equal parts Nick Cave and lonesome urban cowboy.

While the follow-up, “Chaoyang Park,” sounds somewhat dated — those distorted guitar power chords ascending into a dissonant cloud-fuzz have been rendered perhaps a bit too close to Nine Inch Nails’s Broken for critical comfort — it does provide a suitably disorienting environment for the harsh subject matter that lyrically constitutes much of the record:

Are you still following me? I won’t do it anymore
Tell me, what’s your name? Beat me and I won’t tell
Give my cell phone back. Delete those pictures now
I have a wife and a child too. I can’t remember their phone numbers.

I think it’s easy to forget in the wake of Ai’s well-publicized brushes with the law that most musicians in this country shy away from weighty subject matter in their songs — even those in this country’s punk rock scene are guilty of utilizing formulaic flag-waving lyrical bullshit because they’re unwilling to wrap their liberty-spiked heads around anything specific — so it’s nice to hear an outsider not only mentioning the elephant in the room, but tackling it and wrestling it to the ground and trying to yank out its tusks.

And while the muddy, churning mid-tempo sediment of “Laoma Tihua” — a song that appears to recall Ai’s ill-fated trip to Chengdu to attend Tan Zuoren’s trial — was initially a sleeper, repeated listens dredge more interesting stuff up to the surface — nuanced flourishes, like silverfish darting between the reeds as ghouls shriek overhead — and drag it downstream before the current quickly corrects itself with “Hotel USA,” the closest thing on the record to a veritable road banger, a hypnotic effort laced with smoky harmonica curls and druggy campfire chanting.

This song, the first of two arranged by guitarist Zhang Zhe, flows effortlessly, perhaps to a fault, into “Give Tomorrow Back to Me,” an autopiloted ballad that eventually reaches liftoff when Zuoxiao steps in to handle the chorus: this interwoven forlorn crooning cradled in accordion whorls, guitar fills and the almost perceptible swirls of marijuana smoke makes it a contender for one of the best domestic rock songs that I’ve heard this year.

So despite those minor flaws — namely the sequencing, the unsteady pace and the juvenile lyrical content of “Dumbass,” which leaves the listener with a metallic taste in the mouth (which could have been Ai’s intention) – The Divine Comedy never sounds self-indulgent or narcissistic: it’s surprisingly muted and tightly controlled. Perhaps Ai Weiwei and Zuoxiao Zuzhou accomplished exactly what they wanted, whatever that may have been.

The Divine Comedy will be available tomorrow, the two-year anniversary of Ai Weiwei’s release from detention. Pete DeMola is a writer and creative consultant in Hong Kong. He tweets @pmdemola.

CORRECTION, 6/22, 8:03 am: Two corrections have been appended. First, Zhu Yu’s piece on cannibalism was not shown in Ai Weiwei’s exhibit as previously stated. Second, due to an editing error, we misidentified the exhibition that featured Ai’s pictures of himself smashing Han Dynasty urns. We regret the errors.

Ai Weiwei Studios has just released the music video to a second single, Laoma Tihua, which you can watch above. It’s off Ai’s forthcoming album, The Divine Comedy (music by Zuoxiao Zuzhou), which will be released on Saturday morning.

Swing by later today at 11 am for a review by Pete DeMola, whose last piece for us was a compilation of music experts’ opinions of Ai Weiwei’s first single, “Dumbass.” Until then, enjoy this song, dedicated to China’s police. (“Enjoy”?)

Lyrics: Laoma Tihua

Who’s knocking on the door?
We’re all police.
Why are the cops breaching the door?
To see if you’re human.
Why are you breaking in?
To teach you a lesson, kid.
Why are you breaking in?
To teach you a lesson, kid.

Why are you beating me?
So what if I beat you!
Why are you beating me?
Who saw the beating?
Why are you beating me?
Speak with evidence!
Why are you beating me?
Do not fuck around.

Why are you beating me?
Never ever fuck around!

I don’t want to talk to you.
I don’t want to talk to you.
I don’t want to talk to you.
I don’t want to talk to you.

Intrusions can completely ruin a person’s life, and I don’t think that could happen in western nations.

But still, if we talk about abusive interference in individuals’ rights, Prism does the same. It puts individuals in a very vulnerable position. Privacy is a basic human right, one of the very core values. There is no guarantee that China, the US or any other government will not use the information falsely or wrongly. I think especially that a nation like the US, which is technically advanced, should not take advantage of its power. It encourages other nations.

And:

To limit power is to protect society. It is not only about protecting individuals’ rights but making power healthier.

Chinese netizens seem to be somewhat ambivalent about Edward Snowden, who may or may not be still hiding out in Hong Kong. The Wall Street Journal says he’s been given a “hero’s welcome” on the Internet:

“This is the definition of heroism,” wrote one particularly enthusiastic microblogger. “Doing this proves he genuinely cares about this country and about his country’s citizens. All countries need someone like him!”

While SCMP says netizens are either only mildly interested or confused:

Besides wondering why this is news at all, more bloggers seemed confused why Snowden, 29, had fled to China.

“Kid, we have a much more powerful surveillance system in China,” one wrote. “Coming here is suicide.”

“I strongly demand China grant him asylum,” wrote another micoblogger who hailed Snowden as a hero. “It’s time for our country to share the responsibilities of a super power.”

Evan Osnos of the New Yorker weighed in as well about “the sheer cosmic strangeness of the state of affairs in which an American whistleblower feels that he should flee to Chinese territory to avoid the power of the U.S. government.”

Mainland China, which now controls Snowden’s fate to some degree, is that kind of society, with an added twist: in the U.S. there may be an increasingly powerful, overweening state, but in China’s clamorous ecology of money and force, the state is just one invasive entity among many. Over lunch in Beijing not long ago, a friend of mine who works for a private corporate investigator told me offhand that, with one phone call, he could get me a transcript of every text message I had ever sent over the past eight years.

Stay tuned.

By now, you’re probably familiar with Ai Weiwei’s “Dumbass,” the Beijing-born artist-cum-activist’s widely-publicized collaborative heavy metal music video with Zuoxiao Zuzhou that was unveiled last week to promote the pair’s upcoming full-length effort, The Divine Comedy.

Directed by well-known Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle — you may recognize his work with Zhang Yimou and Wong Kar-Wai — the highly-polished video offers a surrealistic interpretation of the 81 days that Ai, 55, reportedly spent in detention in mid-2011 for tax evasion.

In the five-minute flick, a disheveled and closely-guarded Ai goes through the mundane details of everyday prison life — slurping down noodles, showering, getting interrogated — before dissolving into expletive-laden fantasy sequences featuring blow-up dolls, strutting lingerie-clad models and a shearing given by a pint-sized prison protégé.

The video ends with a made-up Ai preening as he’s led to an unknown fate by a pair of guards, painting a speculative portrait of how we imagine the offspring of Uncle Fester, Chairman Mao and Divine would look if you combined their DNA, fertilized a turtle’s egg and hatched it in a subterranean mauve-colored incubation pod.

Ai says that this — the closely-guarded mundane activities, not the cross-dressing — reflects his detention experience.

While it’s become fashionable to bash the outspoken artist that the contemporary art magazine ArtReview has coronated the most powerful in the world for being a spotlight-seeking attention hound, we presume his decisions follow his own internal stream of logic, and we aren’t going to bash them here.

His creative choices, however, are fair game. It’s easy to forget that despite his status as a fawned-over global brand and perennial thorn in the Party’s side, he still is, first and foremost, an artist whose creative output requires public criticism in order to remain valid.

As discussion of the video continued to ripple online over the weekend, we reached out to members of the country’s independent music community to judge the song purely on its artistic merits.

Here’s what they said.

Josh Feola, Smart Beijing/pangbianr

I guess it could charitably be described as nü-metal with subtle trip hop influences. But that’s not really the point, is it? As with that ridiculous “Gangnam Style” parody video he did, Ai proves he can at this point just phone it in, record that phoning in on his iPhone, post it online, and get it written about by the New York Times. Dude can make a haircut newsworthy.

This song is a real stinker. It was presumably written by formerly-awesome avant-rock star Zuoxiao Zuzhou (Weiwei’s pink-clad co-star in his Gangnam parody). For me, the sad part is that this will be the most internationally covered music to come out of China this year. Western journalists just love that dissident angle. All media wonks love writing about everything Ai does, like shooting a music video featuring himself taking a shit. Hey, look: I just fell into the same trap!

Xie Yugang, Wang Wen

This is typical Zuoxiao Zuzhou: Dark, nervous and tight. It’s a cool song. And while the singer isn’t Zuoxiao but rather Ai himself (although Zuoxiao does sing some background vocals at the end), I think that the music in itself would be better if Zuoxiao sang for the duration: his off-tune and eccentric voice would strengthen it as a whole. However, Ai’s offbeat and Chinese karaoke-style vocal does makes the song more interesting…

Nevin Domer, Genjing Records

This harkens back to nineties-era rock in China and early performers like Dou Wei, Tongue and No (Zuoxiao Zuzhou’s band), which makes sense as this is a collaboration with Zuoxiao. While the track might not be winning any awards in the international sphere, it does capture the essence of early Chinese rock — it’s an eclectic mix of ideas and styles jumbled together in a faux-innocent and naive way conveying raw emotion without sophistication.

From a Western perspective, the mixing of classical Chinese sounds with elements of metal and electronic music creates an ahistorical feel to the song. In a Chinese context, however, it heavily connotes a period of opening up and dizzying explosion of change that was China in the 1990s. This musical confusion is echoed by the confusion represented in the lyrics and works to support Ai’s critique of modern China.

Will Griffith, Live Beijing Music:

The elements are there: a heavy metallic beat with an emphasis on trip hop. Drums take the lead, a flute brings the chorus around again and again, and Ai’s voice and lyrics bombard the song without the slightest bit of subtlety.

Does it add up to much? Aesthetically, it’s kind of a mess: none of said elements really mesh together into something cohesive and far-reaching. Granted, perhaps that’s the intent — and in fact, after a few listens, it has a kind of a ramshackle charm about it. But vocally, the man sounds terrible: he’s basically taken Zuoxiao’s signature off-key singing and made it jarring instead of intriguing. It’s in no way a train wreck, but with the talent involved, one would expect something that’s doesn’t feel forced, overproduced and overbearing.

Tim Dodds, Hu Jia Hu Wei

I like this song, but probably not enough to listen to it that many times. I find the oddness of it pleasing. I like how unpredictable it is. It’s not particularly menacing or unnerving, and doesn’t evoke the sensations of horror and savagery that the industrial-tinged instrumental may have been aiming for, but it does convey what (I believe) Ai is trying to get across: a dominant impression of a man in distress.

Most music barely has a dominant impression. Most music just leaves me thinking, “I just heard a song.” Ai’s foray into music is pretty good in this regard: it has power and resonance and that deserves some credit.

Jennifer Conrad, writer, blogger and publicist

I really did not like listening to this song. Maybe this is supposed to sound tortured to evoke Ai’s detention experience? It starts out like it could be a decent, kind of industrial song, and then Ai starts caterwauling over it — he sounds like he’s in the middle of a different song! And the overdubs near the end‽ Everyone has the right to make bad music, but I’m not sure he’s doing much to further his cause here.

Kat Velayo, nightlife editor, City Weekend Shanghai

“Dumbass” kicks off with strident guitar chords, airy synth and drumbeats that could easily be the opening strains of a random nü-metal number from a random band from anywhere. But then the vocals kick in and we’re thinking, ”Ai Weiwei is kind of a terrible vocalist.” That probably gives the song more of an edge because the words become such a focal point, and this really is all about the message, isn’t it? Zuoxiao Zuzhou actually does a great job putting together the medium through which this message is transmitted and his composition keeps your ear interested long enough to sit through Ai’s painful wailings. Is the comedic aspect of his singing deliberate? We think he might just be winking at us on this one.

Anonymous, Beijing-based writer/musician

People’s sentiments for Ai might be conflicting with their capacity for aesthetic analysis. (We could call it the “AWW Effect.”) While I sympathize with what I feel was his wrongful detention, I feel that Ai frequently reveals himself as a narcissistic bully. I take his works and opinions on a case-by-case basis, and in this case, the emperor of Chinese art appears to be naked.

The only good thing I have to say about the video is that the cinematography is mostly high-quality (to be expected, since it’s Chris Doyle). Other than that, I personally find nothing interesting, exciting, enjoyable or relevant about this “punk” song. This isn’t even punk music. It sounds like a glam rock parody. I can’t stand the voice or the thoughtless lyrics. We see images depicting detention, but there’s no real story in those images. But you never know with Ai. Maybe his purpose was to torture us.

Jon Campbell, author, Red Rock: The Long, Strange March of Chinese Rock & Roll

Anyone who thought this was going to be an actual heavy metal album a) Doesn’t comprehend the idea of metal and b) Doesn’t care what, musically, the song and/or album sounds like. For these folks, the value of this project is the idea, not the execution, and it seems to me that Ai is also of this camp.

It’s disheartening that he shows no respect for music as an art form in the way he respects sculpture, photography, installation and other mediums. The whole thing, for me, comes off as a joke. And that’s a shame because if he put his mind to it, Ai could’ve come up with something truly interesting: Not music, per se, but at least an approach involving music.

Zuoxiao Zuzhou is the musical brains behind the operation here, and for me, the song is a perfectly fine Zuoxiao tune that’s ruined by the context out of which it comes. I’m no Zuoxiao fan, but I recognize the value of his work, here and throughout his career. But in this case, the lyrics, video and the Ai element ruin it.

As challenging, artistically, as Zuoxiao’s music is, it’s not challenging in a come-right-out-and-say-”fuck-you-the-Man” way. Like the best yaogun, it challenges authority anyway, because it makes people think, which is what great music — and art — is supposed to do. Ai has created some amazing art. But you wouldn’t know it in this case.

The Divine Comedy will be released on June 22. Pete DeMola is a writer and creative consultant in Hong Kong. He tweets @pmdemola.

You’ve heard by now, but Ai Weiwei did something yesterday. And while most reactions to Dumbass, his foul-mouthed song about his 81 days in prison, were predictably enthusiastic, there’s a segment of commentators who believe Ai Weiwei is overexposed, and have reacted with what amounts to a protracted and very loud sigh.

We’ve sampled some reactions on Twitter below. For the really harsh comments, click on the link above and scroll down to see what our readers have said.

Ai Weiwei’s 81 days in detention in 2011 is the inspiration for his latest work, “Dumbass,” a song he wrote with music by rocker/artist Zuoxiao Zuzhou. The accompanying video was released minutes ago, in which Ai recreates scenes from his imprisonment. “He also portrays fantasies he imagines flitting through the guards’ minds,” reports the NY Times. The cinematography is by Christopher Doyle, who has worked with the likes of Wong Kar-wai.

The song is also on Soundcloud and will be included in a forthcoming album called The Divine Comedy, to be released June 22.

You can download the video here.

If you don’t think you’ll be hearing a lot more about this song in the coming hours and days, you don’t know Western media.

The lyrics are posted on the YouTube description:

Dumbass (Explicit Lyrics)

When you’re ready to strike, he mumbles about non-violence.
When you pinch his ear, he says it’s no cure for diarrhea.
You say you’re a mother-fucker, he claims he’s invincible.
You say you’re a mother-fucker, he claims he’s invincible.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life’s invincible.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life’s invincible.
Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass! Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass!
Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass! Oh dumbass, oh such dumbass!
Lalalalala, lalalalala Lalalalala, lalalalala
Lalalalala, lalalalala Lalalalala, lalalalala

Stand on the frontline like a dumbass, in a country that puts out like a hooker.
The field’s full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
The field’s full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
Fuck forgiveness, tolerance be damned, to hell with manners, the low-life’s invincible.
You say you’re a mother-fucker, he claims he’s invincible.
You say you’re a mother-fucker, he claims he’s invincible.
The field is full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere.
The field’s full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere

On top of everything else, Ai Weiwei is a barber. A good one?

Hm. Maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s start here: exactly what kind of haircuts does he give?

“The kind that will make you want to cry,” he said.

“Just don’t make it boring,” I told him.

“It won’t be boring.”

~

We were sitting on outdoor benches on Wednesday evening at the restaurant Fodder Factory in Caochangdi, a tiny urban enclave whose intimacy and absence of pretension has attracted some of the city’s more self-motivated and independent artists, filmmakers and celebrities, Ai Weiwei included (he’s lived here for 13 years). Several years ago, there was talk of demolishing this village; now it’s where the kids stake out, as they say: kids who brew their own beer, work for Wu Wenguang, organize documentary festivals, build ridiculous stereo systems on wheels, and brainstorm the sort of projects that become the groundwork for mass-produced creativity.

The haircut was arranged by a mutual friend who works closely with Ai Weiwei and myself. He’s an interesting character in his own right, the type whose thoughts constantly race ahead of his ability to act on them — but by now you’ve probably figured out that interesting ones tend to congregate around CCD. That night, a world-famous chef happened to drop by and bump into one of the more popular China correspondents from the last decade. “Watching the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei advise the Spanish/American chef Jose Andres in the flair and nuance of creating iPhone videos, when they crossed paths this evening in Beijing,” wrote James Fallows.

The Atlantic correspondent asks forgiveness “if this seems self-indulgent,” which seems like a pretty good segue for me to ask the same. There’s nothing newsworthy about a haircut, this:

But of course, this is Ai Weiwei we’re talking about, lodestone, dissident, traitor, hero. Everything he does is worthy of something. As the haircut happens — filmed above by Alicia – interested observers gather in a semicircle and hold up camera phones. Only a table of food — much of it, no doubt, ordered by Jose Andres, who had the kitchen fry up a lobster he bought in a market that morning — separates us. And sitting there, one gets a new appreciation for how Ai Weiwei, oversized personality that he is, must understand the cult and farce of celebrity and those who would fawn in the face of it. At the risk of reading way too much into this, perhaps that’s the wry, mischievous reasoning behind his deliberately woeful haircuts: because he knows you — you – will appreciate it, since it came from him. It’s why you’ll wear it for a day, a week, a month after the fact, looking ridiculous because no one else understands the context. You know, however. You got a haircut from Ai Weiwei.

“I’ve given hundreds,” he said. “I could make a book out of it.”

He doesn’t seem impressed. He could make a book out of it, and publishers, marketers, journalists, everyone involved would profit in one way or another. His scraps can be rearranged into manna; his haircuts can turn into 750-word blog posts.

Alas, that’s part of the beauty of Ai Weiwei that often goes unnoticed amid all the other praise: he doesn’t mind letting others benefit off him, even encourages it. He is truly an artist for our digital and social age, generously retweeting online and performing the commensurate act in real life. You hear about his big projects, but he has plenty of smaller ones, too, taken up in his name by assistants and others. I asked before the haircut whether we could film it, and his reaction was such a quick “sure” that it seemed to imply: Did you really need to ask? Want to twist meaning out of a Gangnam video, read cliches into his canvas of work, transform him into a symbol of your worldview? Go for it. It’s not the artist’s job, after all, to create and critique.

~

We’ll critique, however. That haircut — mine – was it any good?

Hm…

Let’s just say it could have been worse:

For more on Caochangdi, check out our writeups about Photospring and Design Week. Ai Weiwei, who had a presence at this week’s Re:publica, will represent Germany at next month’s Venice Biennale, so you’ll probably be hearing more about him soon.

One final note. You know how Andres was getting lessons from AWW on iPhone videos? Apparently he already knew how to use Vine just fine:

The outspoken agitator you know as Ai Weiwei — who, last we checked, is still not allowed to leave the country — might be weary and beat down (or just mugging for the camera), judging by these pictures by Jamie Hawkesworth, who recently visited the artist in his Beijing studio, commissioned by the magazine AnOther.

As Rob Alderson writes on It’s Nice That:

What I particularly love about the series is that while some speak of the dissident artist’s plight in fairly direct terms (the policemen posted outside, the artist slumped unhappily towards the camera) other shots offer a far more tangential take on Ai Weiwei’s situation, inviting us to see – or maybe invent – metaphorical detail as and when. This beautiful series is easily in the top bracket for the ubiquitous studio visit style photoshoots, combining Jamie’s creative talent with the extraordinary situation of his famous subject.

We’re not the biggest champions of Ai Weiwei’s work, but the artist is indeed a valuable lodestone, and it’s for the greater good that he attracts such outstanding fellow artists.

The “Ai Weiwei as caged bird” metaphor can’t be clearer in this following shot, among others over at the It’s Nice That website:

Jamie Hawkesworth’s stunning studio visit shots of Ai Weiwei for AnOther are superb (It’s Nice That, h/t Alicia via Hypebeast)

Since accepting the Nobel Prize in Literature on December 10, the controversial Mo Yan has turned down every formal interview request from every publication in the world. But he finally broke his silence last week, granting a sit-down with Germany’s Der Spiegel, one of Europe’s largest news weeklies. The article was published in this week’s (February 25) issue, roughly coinciding with the German debut of Mo’s novel Frog. The author promised only a “very short” interview but ended up talking for two hours, according to Spiegel, and the result probably could not have been better for the venerable magazine.

Mo Yan called his writing style “un-Chinese,” though said his novels contain “hope, dignity and power.” He said that he “realized that the Cultural Revolution was the mistake of individual leaders. It had less to do with the party itself,” which could have been the sound bite of the interview if he hadn’t proceeded to rebuke Liao Yiwu’s criticism of him, then turn his focus on Ai Weiwei.

“Another one of your critics is Ai Weiwei, an artist particularly well-known in Germany,” the Spiegel interviewer says, and one can almost picture Mo snapping:

“What does he have to say about me?”

(We don’t know that he actually snapped; the published account gives no stage directions.)

And then:

SPIEGEL: He too accuses you of being to close to the state. He says you are detached from reality and cannot represent current China.

Mo: Aren’t many artists in mainland China state artists? What about those who are professors at the universities? What about those who write for state newspapers? And then, which intellectual can claim to represent China? I certainly do not claim that. Can Ai Weiwei? Those who can really represent China are digging dirt and paving roads with their bare hands.

Other highlights follow. Let’s start with this excerpt, out of which Der Spiegel pulled three words — “I am guilty” — for its headline:

SPIEGEL: Unspeakable things happen in many of your novels. In “The Garlic Ballads,” for example, a pregnant woman, already in labor, hangs herself. Still, “Frog” seems to be your sternest book. Is that why it took so long to write?

Mo: I carried the idea for this book with me for a long time but then wrote it relatively quickly. You are right, I felt heavy when I penned the novel. I see it as a work of self-criticism.

SPIEGEL: In what sense? You carry no personal responsibility for the violence and the forced abortions described in your book.

Mo: China has gone through such tremendous change over the past decades that most of us consider ourselves victims. Few people ask themselves, though: ‘Have I also hurt others?’ “Frog” deals with this question, with this possibility. I, for example, may have been only 11 years old in my elementary school days, but I joined the red guards and took part in the public criticism of my teacher. I was jealous of the achievements, the talents of other people, of their luck. Later, I even asked my wife to have an abortion for the sake of my own future. I am guilty.

Mo talks briefly about his writing…

SPIEGEL: Your books paint a bleak picture of modern China. There seems to be no progress. Neither your figures, nor society, nor the country as such seems to be heading anywhere.

Mo: I may be rather un-Chinese in this respect. Most Chinese stories and dramas have a happy ending. Most of my novels end tragically. But there is still hope, dignity and power.

…before dropping this semi-bombshell about the Cultural Revolution:

SPIEGEL: How do you yourself think about this? After all, you were forced to interrupt your education during the Cultural Revolution. And yet, you are still a member of the party.

Mo: The Communist Party of China has well over 80 million members, and I am one of them. I joined the party in 1979 when I was in the army. I realized that the Cultural Revolution was the mistake of individual leaders. It had less to do with the party itself.

The Cultural Revolution is referenced again as he addresses the media pressure that surrounded his Nobel win in the context of freedom of speech and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo:

SPIEGEL: But there are people in this country who are harassed, even arrested for what they write. Do you not feel an obligation to use your award, fame and reputation to speak out on behalf of these colleagues of yours?

Mo: I openly expressed the hope that Liu Xiaobo should regain his freedom as soon as possible. But again, I was immediately criticized and forced to speak out again and again on the same issue.

SPIEGEL: Liu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010. And indeed, repeated statements of support would make a greater impression than a single comment.

Mo: I am reminded of the rituals of repetition in the Cultural Revolution. If I decide to speak, then nobody will stop me. If I decide not to speak, then not even a knife at my neck will make me speak.

He also turned his attention to Chinese exile Liao Yiwu, one of his most vocal critics. (Liao organized a naked-run protest outside the Nobel Banquet Hall in Stockholm the night that Mo received his prize.)

SPIEGEL: When Chinese writer Liao Yiwu was awarded with the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade last year, he criticized you in SPIEGEL as a “state writer” and said you don’t keep enough distance to the government.

Mo: I have read his statement and I have read the speech he gave at the award ceremony. In the speech, he called for the split of the Chinese state. I can absolutely not agree to this position. I think that the people of Sichuan (the province where Liao is from) would not agree to cut their province out of China. I am sure Liao’s parents could never agree to this position. And I can not even imagine that he himself can, in the depth of his heart, agree to what he said there. I know he envies me for this award and I understand this. But his criticism is unjustified.

Mo clarifies that by “criticism” he’s referring to Liao’s accusation that Mo praised Bo Xilai in a poem.

Mo: … in a poem. Actually, the opposite is true. I was sarcastic, I wrote a satire. Let me jot it down again for you.

(Mo Yan takes a notebook and writes)

Sing-red-strike-black roars mightily,
The nation turns its head to Chongqing.
While a white spider weaves a real net that catches bugs,
A black horse with loose bowel movement is not an angry youth.
As a writer one should not be afraid of either a left or right party,
As an official one should hold dear one’s good name before and after his death.
A gentleman, a bedrock in turbulent waters, that you are,
The splendid cliffs shine on Jialing River like fire.

And he addresses the infamous book, which features his writing, that celebrates Mao Zedong’s 1942 Yan’an speech:

Mo: Honestly, it was a commercial project. The editor of a publishing house, an old friend of mine, came up with the idea. He had convinced around 100 writers before and when we attended a conference together, he walked around with a book and a pen and asked me, too, to hand-copy a paragraph of Mao’s speech. I asked “What should I write?” He said: “I chose this paragraph for you.” I was vain enough to take the opportunity to show off with my calligraphy.

There’s more over at Der Spiegel’s website. Go give the interview a read.

Nobel Laureate Mo Yan: ‘I Am Guilty’ (Der Spiegel)

By TAR Nation

On Tuesday night, the Global Times published an article damning Elton John for dedicating his performance to Ai Weiwei and encouraging Chinese people to boo future similar performers off the stage. On the same day, GT published “‘Top thinkers’ list a reflection of US values,” a scathing indictment of Foreign Policy’s list, which features, among others, Ai Weiwei.

It seems that GT will do just about anything it can to insult, discredit and destroy Ai Weiwei.

But it was not always so.

THE LOVE AFFAIR

Once upon a time, Ai was a common feature in the Global Times English-language edition. Collaborator on the Bird’s Nest Stadium, world-renowned artist, troublemaker with just enough sense to stay inside the lines, Ai Weiwei.

There was once optimism at the ludicrously nationalistic propaganda rag, confidence that it wouldn’t just be another party-line tool. No one really knows what happened to make GT’s English-language site become an embarrassment to both China and the government for which it plays pitbull. The columns from He-Hu-Shall-Not-Be-Named got more hateful and violent. The toadying slowly rose to nausea-inducing levels. And anyone who had any idealism got fired, quit or paid enough not to mind.

But back in 2009, there was hope that GT could be relevant, and Ai, just bad-boy enough to make it into the papers, was a bread-and-butter play.

In November 2009, Ai was cited in a feature called “Rage inside the machine,” an article so-called for observations in his blog. In the same month, Ai was mentioned in “2009 in features,” noting a New York Times piece “about some of the more disquieting aspects of his life and work.” In September of that same year, Ai was lauded in “Ai Weiwei’s World Map,” a puff piece featuring his gallery opening in 798. Quote: “Commenting on the socio-political and economic climate of contemporary China, Ai uses metaphoric references, humor, pun and political irony to redefine and reconsider the meaning of traditions.”

GT also acknowledged, without foaming at the mouth, his earthquake work:

As an internationally recognized contemporary Chinese artist, Ai found himself under the spotlight again in December when he started an investigation into the student casualties in the Sichuan earthquake last May.

“Artist,” not dissident or traitor or Western stooge or liberal. “Artist.”

It wasn’t just the Global Times, either. No one really had an excuse to hunt the bearded media-savvy artiste. Xinhua was all aflutter over his being chosen by the Danish government to design a replacement for their “The Little Mermaid,” which was going to be at the Shanghai Expo in 2010, a story reported earlier in May 2009. Under the People’s Daily wide umbrella, The Market News (市场报) praised him in 2005. In Global People (环球人物) and in the overseas edition of People’s Daily, Ai got the celebrity treatment. And Economic Weekly (中国经济周刊) fawned over him in 2009 (see above CMP link for more info).

In the Global Times Forum, GT published Ai’s blog post, “Why Barack Obama should talk about human rights.” In December of the same year, Ai got himself a massive feature, “Making waves,” which celebrated and rejoiced in his kitschy grassroots investigation into the earthquake and artwork. Also, in 2009, GT published this picture:

That is Ai Weiwei’s 9,000 backpacks spelling out “She led a happy life in this world for seven years” in memory of Yang Xiaowan, who died in the Sichuan earthquake. The article was a call to arms for brilliant bloggers, opening with, “Reports of the death of blogging appear greatly exaggerated.”

2010 was not much different. Wen Tao, the greatest reporter you’ll never meet, published “Ai Weiwei takes on ministry” in March 2010. From “A bit of Beijing in Berlin” to “Artist share moving stories,” he was China’s premier artist and lovable eccentric. GT seemingly took his side on the demolition of Fake, and they even published Ai’s personal photos of a protest.

Here is a photo of Ai Weiwei actually IN the Global Times building on Guanghualu in Beijing having his photo taken with staff in early 2011, about three months before GT branded him a “tool of the West.”

The important thing to remember is that, at this time, not one editorial from Hu Xijin or Shan Renping said a word about Ai Weiwei. It just wasn’t in their wheelhouse.

Then he “touched the red line,” as Hu Xijin put it.

THE RED LINE

Everything changed on April 6, 2011, after Ai’s arrest for “tax evasion.” Global Times turned on him with a coordinated character assault. The following is an excerpt from “The law will not be twisted for mavericks” (Chinese edition translation, all praise be unto CMP).

Ai Weiwei, who has been called an “avant-garde artist,” was reportedly “led away” by Chinese police recently, and a number of Western governments and “human rights organizations” quickly stepped out to interfere, demanding that China immediately release Ai Weiwei. They also elevated this matter as a “worsening of human rights” in China, and called Ai Weiwei a “champion of human rights in China.”

Ai Weiwei is a “performance artist” who has been quite active in recent years, and he is often called an “avant-garde artist.” He is a maverick standing on his own. He goes against artistic tradition, and he loves “shocking others with words” (惊人之语) and “shocking others with actions” (惊人之举). He also enjoys moving at the “fringes of the law”, doing things “the legality or illegality of which” ordinary people can’t quite grasp.

As Ai Weiwei loves doing things his way, he often does things “others don’t dare to do.” Moreover, he is surrounded by people of similar ilk. He is probably quite clear himself that he is often not very far from the red line of Chinese law.

This is how fast the whole of China’s propaganda machine can turn on anyone, with vicious and injudicious use of quotation marks.

The Chinese newspapers have done this with every dissident to get a headline, asserting that they sold out their country for fame and glory in the West. They did it with Liu Xiaobo, Liao Yiwu, Chen Guangcheng, ad infinitum. So, in the end, it wasn’t Ai Weiwei that did wrong. It was his defenders, and his defenders came from artists and advocates in pretty much every country on earth with an Internet connection. This means one thing in China: the West.

But Ai Weiwei didn’t just fall from grace. He was pushed.

From that point forward, he was referred to as a dissident or a Western pawn, never again as an “award-winning Chinese artist.” His name became “sensitive,” support of him became harmonized and he was relegated to the scapegoat cabinet of Chinese media. These efforts were, and continue to be, spearheaded by the nationalistic shame that is Global Times. People’s Daily largely stays out of it, but when they do wade into those waters, they reprint from GT. Xinhua does the same. Due to Ai’s general charisma and the fact that he hasn’t really done anything wrong, the Chinese media (and GT in particular) had but one stick left to beat him with: “the West.” And, man, have they worn out that stick.

Here is a smattering of what happened when the worm turned:

“Ai Weiweis will be washed away by history,” November 16, 2011, by Shan Renping:

Artist Ai Weiwei told foreign media recently that some 30,000 people lent him in total 8.8 million yuan ($1.4 million) to pay the tax bill and fine… Is 30,000 a big number, compared to China’s population of 1.3 billion? Even weibo has more than 100 million users. [...]

Ai is a symbol of those dissidents that win full support from the West. Chinese people who have interest in politics all know him. But for those who don’t know him or cannot remember him, are not interested in his game of political confrontation.

The West has supported many dissidents in China. The Western media once regarded Wei Jingsheng, imprisoned in 1978 for 15 years, as “the father of Chinese democracy.” That “father” is now in some little corner of the US and journalists don’t even bother to report on him. [...]

We must say that without the support of the West, Ai is literally nothing. [...]

Their prospects are closely connected with China’s misfortune… Then let’s hope their luck is not so good. Their appearance could serve to keep a prosperous China vigilant.

“West’s support of Ai Weiwei abnormal,” April 16, 2011 (a year after Ai is initially arrested), by an unnamed editor:

Since early April, the arrest of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been used by some Western media as a stick with which to bash China’s human rights situation.

As a Chinese citizen, Ai undoubtedly enjoys favorable treatment from the West, which constitutes an intrusion of China’s legal system. The Western bias toward Ai results from his confrontational attitude to the government. [...]

The belief that there is political persecution in China is a fallacy.  Instead, the country is witnessing the unfolding of democracy. At the same time, that does not mean the people mentioned above can do whatever they want in the name of democracy, nor does the West have the right to set up a roadmap and timetable for China.

It is abnormal to hype up Ai’s case – the West seeks to refute China’s basic political system by paralyzing its legal system. The West will undoubtedly oppose any future verdict on Ai Weiwei, as it aims to put down Chinese values.

“Take note of grass-roots opposition to dissidents,” June 18, 2012, by Yu Jincui:

Ai Weiwei and the Dalai group have both been rejected by the mainstream of Chinese society but are portrayed in a noble light by the West. They have been granted high status by a few Western politicians and political forces. This high recognition abroad, however, is not acknowledged among the majority of Chinese. [...]

At the most, people are often puzzled as to why activists and separatists are given so much attention by the West. The Chinese public values more rational approaches to moving this huge country forward. But this simple feeling is often ignored by the West, thus putting itself at odds with Chinese mainstream society.

There are many more, including this week’s “Elton John’s outburst met with indifference” by the “man” himself, Hu Xijin. (Note: Five unsolicited responses have come forward to tell me that Elton’s “outburst” was met with a reaction, and that it was positive.)

Obviously, John’s [yes, he calls him John] unexpected action was disrespectful to the audience and the contract that he signed with the Chinese side. He forcibly added political content to the concert, which should have been nothing more than an entertaining performance. If they had known that this concert would be dedicated to Ai Weiwei, many in the audience would not have come to see this concert. [...]

Western society is seriously biased against China. When US magazine Foreign Policy compiled a list of 100 global thinkers from around the world, the first Chinese on that list was blind activist Chen Guangcheng, and the second was Ai Weiwei. Even to Chinese people who have sympathy for these two people, this list may seem ridiculous. [...]

The selection of Chen and Ai makes people wonder whether the word “thinker” in Chinese and English have different meanings. We can just say that some Westerners are increasingly unable to contain themselves over China’s rise. They cannot control China through normal means and they are more likely to rush their fences.

A LITTLE BIT OF REVENGE

It’s important to mention that Ai didn’t take all this lying down. In November 2011, he fought back by releasing the personal phone number of Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of the Global Times who pens GT’s editorials and is, as it happens, one of the worst living “human beings.” I have no particular love for Ai Weiwei — art is, let’s be honest, a bit poncey — but everyone is a huge fan of screwing with bullies and getting away with it.

Hu Xijin, a consummate professional, took the fight to his state-funded Communist Party propaganda rag for fair and balanced coverage. We have confirmation that he penned this himself:

So, the man who was detained, extra-judicially, for 81 days (along with his completely innocent staff) caused the propaganda monsters to “suffer” from prank phone calls.

Other gems in this piece include:

The staff of Global Times have no personal grudge against Ai. Global Times has published several commentaries concerning Ai’s case since April but has made no personal attacks against him.

He must have missed the “Ai is literally nothing” bit.

Besides, these comments were conducted against the background of Western media and foreign governments meddling in Ai’s case. Global Times’ response is normal work for a newspaper.

It isn’t. It’s the “normal work” of a childish bully with the full financial and political backing of a brutal autocracy. Also, please refrain from calling the Global Times a newspaper. It tends to make people retch.

Take Ai Weiwei, he should be cautious about his behavior, by invading the privacy of his criticizers because of criticism against him, he negated the expectations of those around him.

My grammar check in MSword brings up three green lines in that sentence. So, assuming it can be made grammatically correct, it’s incorrect. Those around Ai seemed to be in full support; some even went to prison for him, all while GT spewed editorials from its ears about how he is a pawn of the “West.”

The Chinese government should take measures to regulate the online order and curb the increasingly rampant violations on personal rights, including invasion of privacy and death threats. The relevant authorities should take actions to crack down on these illegal acts while safeguarding the freedom of speech.

Ai Weiwei did his thing on Twitter, so… wish granted. You can’t crack down on things you’ve already banned.

THE LESSON

That is what happens when propaganda turns on you, and it is not an isolated case. Similar things have happened with politicians like Bo Xilai, nations like Myanmar and even websites like Google. The moment something stops being convenient, the dogs are released and the floor is covered in blood.

In the end, the lesson here is that China has invented enemies, and you can become one in a second if you overplay your hand while in the public eye. It just takes one spotty editor in one rolly-chair to decide that you are detrimental to “society.” From then on, you are an assumed dissident and a plank for China to beat its imaginary enemies just because they may or may not have tried to stand up for you.

That is, unless, you wade through it all, wade through the hate-filled commentaries, the government bullying, the arrests of the people you love and respect, the alienation, the jail time and official condemnations of your talents; then maybe, just maybe, you get to be a rock star whose Gangnam Style video garners worldwide attention.

Worth it.

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