Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge
The iconoclast’s opposition to the Chinese state has been admirably brave. But this edgeless, confused and mawkish show suggests his art is less so
In 1995 Ai Weiwei held up an ancient Chinese ceramic vessel, opened his arms to let it go, and stood there as it shattered. His new exhibition about craft and fakery includes a recent remake of Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn in Lego. It’s impressive how the black, white and grey Lego bricks create shadowy Warholian images of the artist in three stages of smashing a masterpiece.
I feel obliged to explain. But I can’t, really. I don’t actually know what is clever about smashing an archaeological treasure – the Han dynasty ruled China when the Roman Empire ruled Europe – so I will quote the exhibition guide instead: the “transformative act” of destroying a 2,000-year-old work of art (transforming it into little tiny pieces, I guess) “drew attention to the Chinese government’s widespread destruction of the country’s heritage”.
