About this episode

The episode explores Ai Weiwei's provocative art and its deeper implications regarding power and society.

A 2,000-year-old Han Dynasty urn painted with the “Coca-Cola” logo. A photographic triptych of a priceless vase being dropped and shattered. One hundred million hand-made porcelain sunflower seeds filling Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall. a surveillance camera in Carrara marble. Ai Weiwei’s work can look like provocation, but the deeper one looks, the more one sees a consistent, rigorous aesthetic surveying the various imperatives of power, history, memory, labour, the collective and what societies...

Topics covered

• art
• activism
• aesthetics
• power
• history
• memory
• society

Keywords

• Ai Weiwei
• art
• activism
• aesthetics
• power
• history
• memory
• society
• porcelain
• surveillance

Mentioned in this episode

Books & works: Han Dynasty urn, Coca-Cola logo, photographic triptych, priceless vase, one hundred million hand-made porcelain sunflower seeds, surveillance camera in Carrara marble

Places: Tate Modern

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