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| Left to right: Muchane, Kevin, Sonja, Scott, Linda, Todd, Becca, Willard, Karen and Sharon. |
The exhibition is composed of seven installations; With Wind, Trade, Refraction, Stay Tuned, Illumination, Blossom and Yours Truly. Each work was created specifically for Alcatraz and responds to the island's layered legacy as a military fortress, a notorious federal penitentiary, the site of Native American heritage and protest. The works in @ Large use Alcatraz as a space for dialogue and reflection about how we define liberty, justice, individual rights, personal responsibility, and freedom of expression. The artworks balance political impact with aesthetic grace and address the situation of people around the world who have and are being deprived of their freedom for speaking out about their personal beliefs - people like Ai Weiwei himself.
With Wind, Trace and Refraction are three works in the New Industries Building. The work that was done in this building was a reward to a prisoner at Alcatraz. This work awarded the prisoners the ability to escape their isolation, break their boredom and experience physical activity.
With Wind, Ai Weiwei greets the viewers to the New Industries Building with an enormous Chinese dragon kite. A mythical symbol of power, this dragon is made of individual kites on which political prisoners from 30 countries are quoted.
Trace, in the next room is an enormous carpet of legos with which Ai Weiwei and his army of assistants have fashioned portraits of over 170 people from around the world. All of these people have been imprisoned or exiled due to their beliefs, most of whom are still incarcerated. Ai was quoted saying that he was drawn to the use of lego from his 5 year old son and that he likes the fact that an image can be easily imagined, destroyed and then re-imagined. We thought it was very powerful and looked pretty cool!! Fun fact: it cost $460,000 just for the legos to make this work.
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Adjacent to the installation was a notebook containing photos and descriptions
of the people highlighted in the lego portraits. Conspicuously absent frm the roster of lego portraits was Ai Weiwei himself. |
Refraction was the third installation in the New Industries Building. It is a giant wing made of Tibetan solar panels and tea warmers. It was only visible from walking the gun gallery above the giant work room below.
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| We couldn't resist the kodak-moments and/or maybe we just needed some comedic relief from the intensity of the work. |
We continued touring Alcatraz and the remaining art installations. Yours Truly invited the visitor to send postcards to those who continue to be incarcerated while Stay Tuned and Illumination were audio works. Illumination juxtaposed Tibetan chants with those of Native American Indians while Stay Tuned utilized audio recordings of past political prisoners or those who spoke out for freedom of speech or injustice around the world.
Blossom was perhaps the most poetic and haunting of the 7 works and was staged in the hospital of Alcatraz, an area that is normally not on the tour of the prison. In an area that one would associate with comfort and sympathy, Ai Weiwei used the remaining basins, toilets and tubs to plant small gardens of white ceramic flowers.
All in all, the 7 works in @Large were incredibly moving and thought-provking and well worth the trip to San Francisco for the weekend. If you are interested in watching videos about the works, hearing the words of the political prisoners, listening to some awesome music by Fela Kuti or learning more about Ai Weiwei @Large, here is a link to the website: Check it out!
http://www.for-site.org/project/ai-weiwei-alcatraz/
