Rome, Ai Weiwei's solo exhibition at Galleria Continua

From March 25 to May 22, 2022, Galleria Continua in Rome presents Ai Weiwei ’s (Beijing, 1957) solo exhibition, Change of Perspective. One of the most important contemporary artists, sculptor, painter, performer, photographer, conceptual artist, collector, director (his was the director ofTurandot at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome), human rights writer-reactivist and dissident, his art almost always moves around the reflection on meaning of the traditions of his origins. Indeed, the Roman exhibition aims to analyze the artist’s strong connection with tradition and millenary Chinese culture: desecration and rupture with the past, but also claiming belonging and safeguarding the elements of authenticity and uniqueness of an extraordinarily rich culture. Ai Weiwei interprets motifs, images, metaphors, manufacturing processes and traditional materials in a playful and iconoclastic way to arrive at a critique of the political system.

Porcelain is considered the highest expression of Chinese art. Ai Weiwei’s direct experience with the craftsmen of the Jingdezhen district gives rise to works that are presented in the exhibition. Among them is Wave Plate, a porcelain plate with a celadon gray-green finish that recalls the luminous aesthetic qualities of jade. The swirlingwave motif is an homage to the art of the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368) in which water was a recurring theme; Set of Spouts, a porcelain sculpture covered in a thick, smooth, soft translucent off-white blanket made from broken teapot spouts.

To some famous political dissenters of the past, Ai Weiwei dedicates part of the exhibition: a series of portraits made with the mosaic technique using nearly ten thousand multicolored Lego bricks. The faces recreated are those of Dante Alighieri, Filippo Strozzi, Girolamo Savonarola, and Galileo Galilei. In the unrealistic hues of the bricks, a medium the artist calls “democratic” because everyone knows it and can use it, the faces of these characters acquire the playful and playful character of Pop Art.

The exhibition concludes in the lobby of the St Regis Hotel where the artist offers a tribute to the power of nature and invites us to reflect on humanity’s role in the fragile and changing balance of nature. Palace is the result of Ai Weiwei’s collaboration with local artisans and communities in Trancoso with whom he identified the roots and trunks of an endangered tree, the Pequi Vinagreiro, typical of Bahia’s riverine forest. These rare roots, some of them more than a thousand years old, were shaped and assembled to create boldly shaped sculptures.

Hours: Tuesday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Reservations for the visit are recommended by writing to roma@galleriacontinua.com

Image: Ai Weiwei, Blue-and-White Porcelain Vases (2017; porcelain, 52 x 52 x 50.5 cm) Courtesy of the artist and Galleria Continua.

Rome, Ai Weiwei's solo exhibition at Galleria Continua

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