Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn

Ceramic Works, 5000 BCE - 2010 CE

Gregg Moore and Richard Torchia

You get the idea early on, with photos of Chinese-born, New York-based artist Ai Weiwei dropping a 2000-year-old Han Dynasty urn. Oops. No, that’s the point. This exhibition catalog/monograph from Ai’s first solo exhibition outside New York gives a comprehensive picture of this unconventional artist’s approach to the undoing of assumptions about rare and old ceramics. Whether it’s his famous Coca-Cola vase (with the Coke logo painted over the ancient surface of the pot) or other violations of the surfaces of ancient artifacts, this is a clear expression of iconoclastic modernism. Includes the first English translation of an interview with Ai Weiwei, and an essay by the Beijing-based critic, Philip Tinari. Additonal essays by Glenn Adamson, Dario Gamboni and Stacey Pierson.

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