“How do I express such an historic and disastrous event simply and directly?” Ai Wei Wei asks in the video on loop at Mary Boone Gallery's Chelsea location. The artist has returned to NYC with Forge, a two-part exhibition split between the gallery’s Fifth Avenue and Chelsea locations. The event in question is the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, China, that razed a number of poorly constructed schools and claimed 5,196 child victims, which the Chinese government subsequently tried to cover up.
On display are droves of reinforcing bars, or rebars, collected from the remains of the earthquake. Weiwei first used them in Straight, an exhibit where he hammered them all straight. In Forge, these same bars have been deliberately bent to reflect the warped states in which they were found. With sharp edges jutting out, the scattered display creates an industrial, almost threatening mood. The months of laborious work––heating the bars and bending them, as the artist's workers did––is obvious. Each wiry pole forces the viewer to face the earthquake's wreckage. And the photograph hanging above the rebars, which replicate the display below, is only further enveloping.
At the Fifth Avenue location, 2,500 handmade porcelain river crabs (which clawed at OC contributor Darcel Disappoints when he visited the show) all encircle a wide pillar. They’re in reference to the river crab feast that Weiwei organized in protest of his studio's imminent demolition––also an action of censorship taken by the Chinese government. Behind the display hang before-and-after photographs of the studio’s destruction. Forge recalls the inequity of Chinese policies that Weiwei continuously addresses in his artwork, but to call it redundant would be wrong. It’s more like a relentless display of social activism that slowly chips away at his government’s stability.
Through December 21, 2012.
MARY BOONE GALLERY (5th Ave)
745 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10151
MAP
MARY BOONE GALLERY (Chelsea)
541 W 24th St.
New York, NY 10001
MAP
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Still from a video on display
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Before photo...
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On display are droves of reinforcing bars, or rebars, collected from the remains of the earthquake. Weiwei first used them in Straight, an exhibit where he hammered them all straight. In Forge, these same bars have been deliberately bent to reflect the warped states in which they were found. With sharp edges jutting out, the scattered display creates an industrial, almost threatening mood. The months of laborious work––heating the bars and bending them, as the artist's workers did––is obvious. Each wiry pole forces the viewer to face the earthquake's wreckage. And the photograph hanging above the rebars, which replicate the display below, is only further enveloping.
At the Fifth Avenue location, 2,500 handmade porcelain river crabs (which clawed at OC contributor Darcel Disappoints when he visited the show) all encircle a wide pillar. They’re in reference to the river crab feast that Weiwei organized in protest of his studio's imminent demolition––also an action of censorship taken by the Chinese government. Behind the display hang before-and-after photographs of the studio’s destruction. Forge recalls the inequity of Chinese policies that Weiwei continuously addresses in his artwork, but to call it redundant would be wrong. It’s more like a relentless display of social activism that slowly chips away at his government’s stability.
Through December 21, 2012.
MARY BOONE GALLERY (5th Ave)
745 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10151
MAP
MARY BOONE GALLERY (Chelsea)
541 W 24th St.
New York, NY 10001
MAP
Still from a video on display
Before photo...
