It's important to show you're not just about profit, artist and activist Ai Weiwei tells CLIFFORD COONANin Beijing
AI WEIWEI, China’s most controversial artist and activist, is equally well known for his design work on the Olympic Bird’s Nest stadium and his outspoken criticism of the Communist Party.
For the moment though, Ai’s thoughts are with his neighbouring artists, who have just been attacked by thugs trying to force them out of their studios to make way for real-estate developments.
“Several were hit and injured, it was very bloody. They came to me to ask advice,” he says.
The artists decided to march on Tiananmen Square, site of the massacre of pro-democracy demonstrators in June 1989. They didn’t get very far, but a point was made.
“The decision to demolish this art base was made to obtain more land for the local government to sell – the government grabbed the land,” says Ai.
He attracts so much attention from people with grievances and complaints that you wonder how long his constant barrage of criticism will be tolerated. Other outspoken critics such as Hu Jia and Liu Xiaobo are already in jail.
“I’ve been doing too much, I realise this,” he says. “It’s a pity I’ve become this figure. Every time I say I shouldn’t do so much because I’m putting myself in an awkward position but life’s not like that. I’m not scared to be in jail, I’d just have to deal with it.”
His credentials are impeccable, a true cultural blue-blood. He is the son of the poet Ai Qing, who was denounced during the Cultural Revolution and packed off to a labour camp in Xinjiang with his wife, Gao Ying. Ai Weiwei himself spent five years there.
His wife Lu Qing is also an important artist, and he attended the Beijing Film Academy with top film-makers Chen Kaige and Zhang Yimou.
However he has repeatedly placed himself into opposition with the government, a dangerous position in a single-party state.
“The character of the Chinese government has changed to non- lawful, not using legal process, just for profit. It’s a government with no ideology or vision. It’s just about how to survive.”
As you enter his studio in the Chuangyi art district, your eye is drawn to the rows of A4 paper sheets lined up to form a large rectangle covering most of the wall. These are the names of the 5,250 children who perished in the Sichuan earthquake nearly two years ago.
In December 2008, Ai started an investigation into those children who died.
The project was supported initially, but after researchers started asking why there were so many dead in some schools and not in others, things began to get awkward.
Police burst into his hotel room in Chengdu at 3am on August 12th last and beat him up so badly that Munich surgeons subsequently had to drill two holes in his head to remove 30ml of fluid from his skull.
“I almost got killed. If it had been any more serious, I wouldn’t be here.The point is, if you want to make a point you are in danger. Whoever comes to this point will be crushed.”
His colleague Tan Zuoren was jailed for five years for his work in helping compile data about earthquake victims.
“Tan was willing to take jail because someone has to do it. The real loser is the government. I feel sorrow to say it. China has no independent judicial systems – everything is under party control,” he says.
Asked if he thinks that western governments do enough to confront China on rights issues, he says the situation is a bit like living next door to someone who is beating up their children.
“It’s not your problem,” he says, but ultimately you will feel bad. The same thing will happen when western countries think about always putting business first.
“I think they will feel sorry, they will think about the people who work here and what kind of society they are building up.
“Google did a good thing,” he adds, referring to the web giant’s threat to quit China over cyber- assaults on dissidents’ e-mail and censorship.
“They made a statement. Making a statement is important to show you are not just an animal of profit making.”