Comes to germany, does not like it, makes a picture of a middle finger to Bundestag. This smells like ragebait low effort content I come to HN in order to avoid!
I was initially dismissive of the photo, but it is part of a series, titled "Study of perspective" that Weiwei has been adding to since 1995. He has been giving the finger to many symbols of imperialism and authoritarianism around the world for 30 years.
If one picture is unimaginative and vulgar, I don't see why doing it 30 years somehow makes it "art". It makes me think he's just angry and rude, just like I'd think about someone who goes around flicking people off for 30 years. In a post-modern perspective that's "telling truth to power" or something, but that's just sophistry.
While I chuckle at the fact Ai Weiwei choose to dump on Germany while enjoying unbothered refuge here, this sentence I disliked the most.
It reeks of over-thinking, philosophical elitism.
As someone who was raised by parents born in Communist Romania, talk to anyone born in an Authoritarian regime and they’ll tell you what the absence of freedom means like.
When it comes to assessing freedom, I’d stick closer to German-Romanian literature Nobel prize winner Hertha Müller.
Coincidentally, just like Ai Wewei she’s been living here in Berlin and seems not to feel particularly unfree.
https://publicdelivery.org/ai-weiwei-study-of-perspective/