I visited the Design Museum on 9 June with the class. It was by far one of the most interesting and thought provoking exhibits that I have visited in this year. I truly enjoyed all the pieces that were in the exhibit and the range of media that was presented in Ai Wei Wei’s work
SPOUTS, 2015 Porcelain
"This field is made up of more than 250,000 porcelain spouts from teapots and wine ewers, crafted by hand during the Song dynasty (960-1279CE). If a pot was not perfect when it was made, the spout was broken off. The quantity here attests to the scale of porcelain production in China even a thousand years ago. Ai is also offering a commentary on freedom of speech, with the spouts-or mouths-having been removed"
It was extremely interesting to see the scale of this piece compared to the smaller objects in the exhibit. Especially made up of such a small object like a teapot spout, it truly reflected the description that Ai made for this piece. I wondered what would become of this piece once it leaves the exhibition.
7. HANDLED EWER, Song Dynasty Porcelain, unknown maker
8. UNTITLED (RE-FIRING SPOUTS FROM THE SONG DYNASTY), 2015 Porcelain
This goes hand in hand with the other piece above and was really interesting to see how the spouts looked like individually vs. all piled up together like the previous piece.
WATER LILLIES #1, 2022 Lego bricks
Courtesy of Galleria Continua
"The largest Lego work Ai has ever created, this is a recreation of one of the most famous paintings by French Impressionist Claude Monet... To the right of Ai's version is a dark portal which is the door to the underground dugout in Xinjiang province where Ai and his father, Ai Qing, lived in forced exile in the 1960s. Their hellish desert home punctures the watery paradise. The image has been constructed out of Lego bricks to strip away Monet's brushstrokes in favor of a depersonalized language of industrial parts and colors".
This was my favorite piece in this exhibition, especially being a close comparison to Monet’s own style and work. It made for a much more personal and emotional composition considering the fact that this piece is made entirely out of legos. I loved how large the piece was and how it covered the entire wall of the exhibit, maybe even larger than an original Monet piece. It made me feel small next to the piece, made me feel really small next to the wall of emotions.
A piece from the timeline in the Design museum
After exploring the Ai Wei Wei exhibit, I explored the rest of the Design Museum and noticed a timeline that mentioned William Morris for 1861. It made me remember the previous museum visit that I made to his gallery and all the pieces that were exhibited as evidence to his contribution to design. This was all tied to the first episode of Genius of Design and how all three of these museums and media are tied together and refer to William Morris.