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Ai Weiwei, The Artist as Collector

May 22, 2009 by Marion Maneker

The Wall Street Journal interviews Ai WeiWei who’s work is both based in China’s past–utilizing antiques and artifacts–and overtly political and topical. Here Ai answers questions about his own collecting:

Why do you collect Neolithic pottery?

I have about 200 pieces. Most people like the blue and white Qing dynasty stuff. But in China, you can spend only one month and build a first-class collection of Neolithic pieces because the prices are relatively low, and you need a better appreciation of art to understand it.

Why do you collect jade?

I like it because it’s special. A thousand — maybe 2,000 — pieces have passed through my hands. One day, when I’m older, I’ll have time to sort through them all. My favorite piece is always the piece that fascinates me — where I can’t guess the reason someone made it. Now I have a small ax, maybe five millimeters thick, about the size of a pack of cigarettes. And it was sliced in half making two even thinner pieces. Nobody knows how they made the ax; why the hell slice it in two?

In other pieces, there are round holes. You can understand how they made those by drilling the stone. But some have square holes — how did they make that?

What’s your philosophy of collecting?

There is always something great that no one else pays attention to. At the beginning I liked stone sculpture. No one else liked it. Now it’s hot. Later, I bought jade from the Liao Dynasty (907-1125). The Liao conquered parts of China after the Tang Dynasty, but nobody cared about them because they were a minority. Then it also became very hot.

The Collector: Ai Weiwei (Wall Street Journal)

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Filed Under: Collectors

About Marion Maneker

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