Ai WeiWei
The initial thoughts I had of him and his work, was that it was amazing how he used his art to speak for how he feels. He uses different mediums to express himself and the things he has experienced through his life. Many artist can be considered activists and some activists can be seen as artists. I feel at times they do go hand in hand for the most part. Artists use their work to express themselves and and to express what words cannot. He states in the video that they might not see the political in the art but it's there. I feel in this case he is both an artist and activist.
In order to answer the question about whether his work can be considered "fine art" or not I looked up what fine art means. One site, www.visual-art-cork.com, explains it as something that is appreciated for its aesthetics not for its functionality. If that is the case I would not consider Ai Weiwei's artwork as fine art, because it does more than look pretty or beautiful. His artwork gives voices to those who lost their voice, in the case of those children who died in the quake for example.
One thing I took away from this is that how some of the greatest artworks through history comes from humans suffering. He uses every ounce of his right as an individual to speak about all this even against the government he lives under. To this day we do see many situations how a simple right like freedom of speech can be taken away for just being used. This topic will never go away because of people such as Ai Weiwei.
I saw this site while skimming on instagram, I felt you all would enjoy it as well. The title explains itself.
The work of these street artists reminds us how life has changed and why.
