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Ai Weiwei's blog : writings, interviews, and digital rants, 2006-2009 / Ai Weiwei ; edited and translated by Lee Ambrozy.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextSeries: MIT Press writing art seriesPublication details: Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, c2011.Description: xxviii, 307 p. : ill. ; 23 cmISBN:
  • 0262015218 (pbk. : alk. paper)
  • 9780262015219 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 303.483 WEI
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: 2006 Texts -- Problems Facing Foreign Architects Working within a Chinese Architectural Practice -- Architecture and Space -- Photography -- With Regard to Architecture -- Chinese Contemporary Art in Dilemma and Transition -- On Photography -- Who Are You? -- The Longest Road -- Their City -- N Town -- S Village in Beijing -- Wrong Place, Right Time -- Distracting Thoughts Overhead -- A Straightforward Angle: Liu Xiaodong -- Quietly Settling Dust -- Fragments -- A World without Honor -- Yesterday I Cut My Hair -- Here and Now -- Ideal Cities and Architecture Do Not Exist -- As Soon as You\'re Not Careful... an Encounter with Idiocy on a Sunny Day -- A Path to an Unknown Place -- A Curse for Zuzhou -- Ordinary Architecture -- Ar Chang's Persistence -- The Computer Worth Several Hundred Million and One Worthless Brain -- A Road with No End -- Ignorance and Hypocrisy Always Win -- Why I Am a Hypocrite -- The People, the Moon, Zidane, and More -- Some Thoughts on Future Cities -- Letting Our Mistakes Keep Us Down -- Aftershocks -- Spiritual Orientation and the Possibilities of Existence -- Super Lights: Yan Lei and His Work -- Flat-Bottomed Cloth Shoes -- Familiar Curse Words -- Despicable Things -- Bile from Living Bears -- Different Worlds, Different Dreams -- Hypnosis and Fragmented Reality: Li Songsong -- Documenting the Unfamiliar Self and the Non-self: Rongrong & inri -- Widespread Beliefs -- The Ethical Foundation of Justice -- 2007 Texts -- Life, Crime, and Death -- Standards and Practical Jokes -- Rowing on the Bund: Wang Xingwei -- Eternally Lost Confidence -- Dog Massacre in Wan Chuan -- A Fairytale Becomes an Artwork -- National Day -- Andy Warhol -- Designatum -- Some Abnormal Numbers -- 2008 Texts -- Hallucinations and Inhaling Poisons -- We Have Nothing -- Flickering Screens -- A Word of Thanks -- Light as a Feather -- The Space between Reality and Ideals: Zhao Zhao -- Divination and Democracy -- Grief -- Silent Holiday -- Sacrifice -- Karmic Retribution for Karma -- The Way of Teacher Fan and Ethics in the Ministry of Education -- Forget About It -- Paper Tigers and Paper Hunters -- Smashing and Burning -- the Eccentric and Unsociable Type / Yang Jia -- On the Bird's Nest -- Endless Surprise -- Pipe Dreams -- Doing Push-ups -- Public Trial -- The Trial -- Olympic Virus -- Does the Nation Have a List? -- Closing the Opening Ceremony -- The Olympic Committee -- Obama -- That Liu Yaling -- Why Violence? -- Kill, but Not in the Name of Justice -- Bullshit Is Free -- Stimulating Domestic Introspection -- 2009 Texts -- Shanzhai Ideals -- Inappropriate Accusations, Excessive Punishments -- Bullshit Tax -- Two Jokes -- Confidence, Face, a Shoe -- Central Television Is Flaming -- Heartless -- Central Television Inspired China -- What Is Central Television, Anyway? -- My Regards to Your Mother -- Citizen Investigation -- Letter from a Beichuan Mother -- Guests from All Corners of the Earth -- Day of True National Revitalization -- These Days I Can't Believe Anything You Say -- Paranoid Citizen -- 5.12 Memorial Day -- How Could We Have Degenerated to This? -- Domestic Security Rice Cookers -- Don't Harbor Illusions about Me -- I'm Ready -- Let Us Forget -- If You Aren't Anti-China, Are You Still Human? -- Boycott the Internet on July 1, Don't Make Excuses, Don't Calculate Losses or Gains -- 140 Characters -- I Really Can't Believe It.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Standard Loan LSAD Library Main Collection 303.483 WEI (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 39002100452649

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Manifestos and immodest proposals from China's most famous artist and activist, culled from his popular blog, shut down by Chinese authorities in 2009.

In 2006, even though he could barely type, China's most famous artist started blogging. For more than three years, Ai Weiwei turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographical writings. He wrote about the Sichuan earthquake (and posted a list of the schoolchildren who died because of the government's "tofu-dregs engineering"), reminisced about Andy Warhol and the East Village art scene, described the irony of being investigated for "fraud" by the Ministry of Public Security, made a modest proposal for tax collection. Then, on June 1, 2009, Chinese authorities shut down the blog. This book offers a collection of Ai's notorious online writings translated into English--the most complete, public documentation of the original Chinese blog available in any language.

The New York Times called Ai "a figure of Warholian celebrity." He is a leading figure on the international art scene, a regular in museums and biennials, but in China he is a manifold and controversial presence: artist, architect, curator, social critic, justice-seeker. He was a consultant on the design of the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium but called for an Olympic boycott; he received a Chinese Contemporary Art "lifetime achievement award" in 2008 but was beaten by the police in connection with his "citizen investigation" of earthquake casualties in 2009. Ai Weiwei's Blog documents Ai's passion, his genius, his hubris, his righteous anger, and his vision for China.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Machine generated contents note: 2006 Texts -- Problems Facing Foreign Architects Working within a Chinese Architectural Practice -- Architecture and Space -- Photography -- With Regard to Architecture -- Chinese Contemporary Art in Dilemma and Transition -- On Photography -- Who Are You? -- The Longest Road -- Their City -- N Town -- S Village in Beijing -- Wrong Place, Right Time -- Distracting Thoughts Overhead -- A Straightforward Angle: Liu Xiaodong -- Quietly Settling Dust -- Fragments -- A World without Honor -- Yesterday I Cut My Hair -- Here and Now -- Ideal Cities and Architecture Do Not Exist -- As Soon as You\'re Not Careful... an Encounter with Idiocy on a Sunny Day -- A Path to an Unknown Place -- A Curse for Zuzhou -- Ordinary Architecture -- Ar Chang's Persistence -- The Computer Worth Several Hundred Million and One Worthless Brain -- A Road with No End -- Ignorance and Hypocrisy Always Win -- Why I Am a Hypocrite -- The People, the Moon, Zidane, and More -- Some Thoughts on Future Cities -- Letting Our Mistakes Keep Us Down -- Aftershocks -- Spiritual Orientation and the Possibilities of Existence -- Super Lights: Yan Lei and His Work -- Flat-Bottomed Cloth Shoes -- Familiar Curse Words -- Despicable Things -- Bile from Living Bears -- Different Worlds, Different Dreams -- Hypnosis and Fragmented Reality: Li Songsong -- Documenting the Unfamiliar Self and the Non-self: Rongrong & inri -- Widespread Beliefs -- The Ethical Foundation of Justice -- 2007 Texts -- Life, Crime, and Death -- Standards and Practical Jokes -- Rowing on the Bund: Wang Xingwei -- Eternally Lost Confidence -- Dog Massacre in Wan Chuan -- A Fairytale Becomes an Artwork -- National Day -- Andy Warhol -- Designatum -- Some Abnormal Numbers -- 2008 Texts -- Hallucinations and Inhaling Poisons -- We Have Nothing -- Flickering Screens -- A Word of Thanks -- Light as a Feather -- The Space between Reality and Ideals: Zhao Zhao -- Divination and Democracy -- Grief -- Silent Holiday -- Sacrifice -- Karmic Retribution for Karma -- The Way of Teacher Fan and Ethics in the Ministry of Education -- Forget About It -- Paper Tigers and Paper Hunters -- Smashing and Burning -- the Eccentric and Unsociable Type / Yang Jia -- On the Bird's Nest -- Endless Surprise -- Pipe Dreams -- Doing Push-ups -- Public Trial -- The Trial -- Olympic Virus -- Does the Nation Have a List? -- Closing the Opening Ceremony -- The Olympic Committee -- Obama -- That Liu Yaling -- Why Violence? -- Kill, but Not in the Name of Justice -- Bullshit Is Free -- Stimulating Domestic Introspection -- 2009 Texts -- Shanzhai Ideals -- Inappropriate Accusations, Excessive Punishments -- Bullshit Tax -- Two Jokes -- Confidence, Face, a Shoe -- Central Television Is Flaming -- Heartless -- Central Television Inspired China -- What Is Central Television, Anyway? -- My Regards to Your Mother -- Citizen Investigation -- Letter from a Beichuan Mother -- Guests from All Corners of the Earth -- Day of True National Revitalization -- These Days I Can't Believe Anything You Say -- Paranoid Citizen -- 5.12 Memorial Day -- How Could We Have Degenerated to This? -- Domestic Security Rice Cookers -- Don't Harbor Illusions about Me -- I'm Ready -- Let Us Forget -- If You Aren't Anti-China, Are You Still Human? -- Boycott the Internet on July 1, Don't Make Excuses, Don't Calculate Losses or Gains -- 140 Characters -- I Really Can't Believe It.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Ai Weiwei is one of today's most important and controversial artists. His recent exhibitions include "Sunflower Seeds" at the Tate Modern, London, a vast assemblage of handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds; and six fiberglass dioramas depicting his 81-day imprisonment in 2011, shown at a Venice gallery in parallel with the 2013 Venice Biennale. He was a designer of the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Lee Ambrozy is the Editor of artforum.com.cn, Artforum's Chinese language website.

Lee Ambrozy is the Editor of artforum.com.cn, Artforum's Chinese language website.

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