Ai Weiwei "According to What"

Dan's Red 1965 Buick Riviera 

 Keith and I were treated to a ride to and from the Hirshhorn Art Museum yesterday in Dan Murray's 1965 Buick Riviera. One of his three vintage automobiles. It's always fun to ride in them as long as I am strapped in I feel safe but with all that metal on the dash and power under the hood it makes me feel a bit anxious. We went to see an exhibition I heard from an art pal was suppose to be very good. Ai Weiwei is maybe the most famous Chinese contemporary artist know all throughout the west. He is best known as the designer of the Bird's Nest stadium from the 2008 Summer Olympics. He has been a sort of agitator and dissident and follows a long tradition of poet activists pushing for greater personal freedoms in his culture. I have been following his life the last few years since he  has been getting in trouble with the powers of the Communist government. He spent his formative years in the same part of lower east village NYC I did and in the show there were a string of black and white photos from those early days in 1983-93. Showing the same Pyramid Club I frequented.

Dan's driving us downtown to the Hirshhorn to see the Ai Weiwei retrospective exhibition. 

It is fun riding in his vintage cars. Waiting at intersections people often comment  and gesture. 

What no seat belts in the back? Yikes don't hit the brakes too hard Dan. 

 The first thing we saw once we arrived was the twelve Chinese Zodiac heads he made in the courtyard of the museum around the drained fountain. Very impressive bronze busts on pole stands. We played tourists and posed by our signs but Dan wasn't sure which he was and there were no guides that we saw. I was lucky that recently in a Chinese restaurant with my mom we sorted out ours together off the printed paper place mats while waiting for our egg rolls!

Dan thought he was born under the Cock but it turns out he was in the year of the Monkey 1956

Frederick born under the Ram 1955

Keith born under the Dragon 1964 

It was a very exciting exhibition. Large and impressive works featuring the crafts of China put to work in a larger way than pure craft alone. Thought provoking and clever. I won't spoil it by trying to describe them here in words. I didn't photograph the installations because I don't think photos would do them justice. I recommend you plan a trip in the next couple weeks if you possibly can or watch for his work or documentaries on it on the internet. Ai Weiwei will be in the news again... He thrives on getting his ideas out into the ether.

Link to previews of the show at Hirshhorn Museum:
Ai Weiwei According to What 

Link to a good introduction to Ai Weiwei documentary:

BBC：艾未未专题纪录片（Ai Weiwei, Without Fear or Favor）

August 21st

rotunda of NGA

selecting flowers 

portrait of a young man by 

Corneille de la Haye, 

French, artist active 1534-1574

water and light

early bug collectors painting

fun with the camera

crisp reflections water

strawberry shortcake

favorite indoor fountain topped by mercury 

detail of another favorite painting's fine hands

Portrait of a Merchant, c. 1530

artisit Jan Gossaert, Netherlandish 1478-1532

I went with Keith to the National Gallery of Art for Lunch. We had a great meal and a delicious desert. Strawberry short cake as seen above. Something about the mix of the red strawberry sweet & tart, rich whipped cream, mixed with yellow sponge cake is so good this time of year. We played with our cameras all around the gallery and looked at books and enjoyed the water fountains and a few rooms of masters artworks. I discovered a small work of art in the Dutch wing who's subject was insects and I had to document that for comparison with my bug pictures posted here recently. I am not the only artist interested in bugs! I think this artist Jan van Kessel had to use pin down techniques to capture his insects. Later I found a theme in my photos on my birthday at the National Gallery of water and details. This began with my favorite fountain in the central rotunda. The sculpture of Mercury who was the messenger of the gods and represents the arts is posed so deftly on the ball of his foot, above the smooth sound of water falling over the edges of his big marble bowl. It is very relaxing to sit in that round room listening to the water fall as people pass. Other pictures of water and light reflecting were outside in huge pink stone bowls of falling water under the sun mixed with shade from Oak trees. The portrait of a young man caught my eye years ago and became a favorite painting. This picture is only about a foot tall in that architecturally detailed frame it is a very intimate view that to me, speaks about love of youthful innocence. I wish I could get a better photograph of the young man's portrait, but the NGA's website has a good close up if you follow the link. Artworks on the wall with highly varnished surfaces are very difficult to photograph. I don't use flash because it only reflects back off the mirror like surfaces of the paintings' varnish. I believe flash also harms pigments in paintings, so it is annoying to see others use flash.  Another painting I like is a Netherlandish portrait of a merchant and in that picture all the details are amazing. I shot the hands but again on the NGA website they have better pictures you can see it all in very fine detail. Keith let me go where and do what I wanted on my birthday with the proviso that we needed to drop by the farmer's  market at Penn. Quarter just a couple blocks from NGA at 8th and D Sts., NW so he could buy more locally grown flowers for his ikebana arrangements blog. I was delighted to go there and find more fun things to photograph. We brought home a nice batch of flowers including richly perfumed tuber roses and a type of bright green pod on a milkweed related plant that is new in floral arrangements. On  Sogetsuatelier.blogspot.com   Keith's blog, where he posts his ikebana arrangements you can see them in the first photo, today. Look for one tall sunflower and the fuzzy green pods below. Thanks to Keith and everyone who sent birthday wishes, gifts and to all my friends and family for a happy day. Back at home I watched an engaging costume historical Merchant Ivory film on cable after our trip to the gallery called The White Countess  while Keith was in ikebana class. If you like Merchant Ivory movies this was their last one before Ivory died.  When Keith got home from his class we topped the day off with a cold salmon dinner, more cake and gifts. August 21st, 2008 was a delightful 53rd birthday. 

sunday downtown

chickory flower detail

grass & chickory

queen anne's lace and mullein

We went to the lecture that introduced the Martin Puryear retrospective which is open now in both East and West wings of the NGA (National Gallery of Art). It was an informative lecture and slide show. Martin is a local DC boy (b.1941) and lived here until he went away, after graduation from Catholic University as a painting major, to work for the Peace Corps for two years in Africa. He grew up playing on the national mall and visiting the NGA and the speaker liked to compare his sculptures to the domes and obelisk on the national mall. As a teenager Martin used to make wooden things that he wanted in his father's wood shop. Guitar, canoe, and bow and arrows were some of the things he told her he built and learned to use. Visiting his exhibition you see lots of attention to details that a furniture maker uses in the art works. I enjoyed the largest of the sculptures called Ad Astra, which is an antique set of wagon wheels from France that have a cart built for them that holds a big wooden polyhedron and a pole that would be the "hitch" for the oxen which is 63 feet long. This hitch pole looks like a long sapling tree going right up to the roof of the East wing. This tree is only in two parts. The first of which is 45 feet in length  and the attached tip is another 18 feet and the joint can be seen up close on the third story bridge. It is amazingly long and delicate standing in that void and we were told it was made expressly for the new atrium at the MoMA in NYC also a large open space. Another work I liked was titled Desire. 1981 It was a great wheel and axle attached to a lattice like bell in the west wing galleries where the bulk of the show is housed. I think it is great to see all that wood, tar, rawhide and wire in those galleries with their beautiful hard wood floors. It is quite different from the norm for NGA west wing to have such contemperary works housed in these galleries. The curator told us one of the installation people who has worked there for 20 years said while they were putting up the show that he thought after the Vermeer show this was the best he had seen in the NGA. I am not quite that excited about it but would highly reccomend this exhibit to my friends. Keith and I met Susan and had drinks and enjoyed some of the gallery and later the sculpture gardens and a bison burger over at our favorite NGA neighborhood restaurant Teaism before the rains came but this was a Sunday to remember. No photos were allowed of the sculptures in this show but I did make some nice shots of the "weeds"  in the field by our Brookland Metro station. Chickory blue flowers and tall Queen Anne's Lace white against the tall staff of the Mulleins.