A Photo A Day

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (084/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (083/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (082/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (081/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (080/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Blossom (079/365)

In this work, Ai Weiwei quietly transforms the utilitarian fixtures in several Hospital ward cells and medical offices into delicate porcelain bouquets. The artist has designed intricately detailed encrustations of ceramic flowers to fill the sinks, toilets, and tubs that were once used by hospitalized prisoners.

Like With Wind in the New Industries Building, Blossom draws on and alters natural imagery as well as traditional Chinese arts. Rather than referring to national iconography, however, the flowers here carry other associations. The work could be seen as symbolically offering comfort to the imprisoned, as one would send a bouquet to a hospitalized patient. The profusion of flowers rendered in a cool and brittle material could also be an ironic reference to China’s famous Hundred Flowers Campaign of 1956, a brief period of government tolerance for free expression that was immediately followed by a severe crackdown against dissent.

-Taken from the For-Site website

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (078/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (077/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (076/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (075/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (074/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (073/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (072/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (071/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (070/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (069/365)

[afotoeachday-blog]

@Large at Alcatraz: Stay Tuned (068/365)

This sound installation occupies a series of twelve cells in A Block. Inside each cell, visitors are invited to sit and listen to spoken words, poetry, and music by people who have been detained for the creative expression of their beliefs, as well as works made under conditions of incarceration. Each cell features a different recording. The diverse selection includes the Tibetan singer Lolo, who has called for his people’s independence from China; the Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot, opponents of Vladimir Putin’s government; and the Robben Island Singers, activists imprisoned during South Africa’s apartheid era.

Ai Weiwei has described the texture of the individual voice as a particularly potent vehicle for human connection and communication. Heard inside a cell, speech and singing create a powerful contrast to the isolation and enforced silence of imprisonment.

-Taken from the For-Site website