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Label Text Ai Weiwei was born and educated in China. He lived in New York City from 1981 to 1993, when he returned to China and established a studio near Beijing. His art is often politically or socially charged, and he has been openly critical of China's human rights record. Arguably his most significant project was at the Tate Modern in London in 2010. This major work, titled Sunflower Seeds, installed in the Tate's large Turbine Hall, consisted of one hundred million porcelain sunflower seeds, each individually hand-made and hand painted by 1,600 Chinese artisans. The Art Center's acquisition is a portion of the seeds installed in the Turbine Hall. Ai's body of work, and especially the enormous scale of the Tate installation, demonstrates China's industrial capabilities and the country's attempts to come to grips with its past as well as its future. The installation comments on mass production and consumption, collective labor, and cultural history and its loss. Porcelain production is an intriguing facet of Chinese tradition. It is a product of high artistic and monetary value and for many, it equates Chinese culture. Sunflower Seeds were a common food source in China when Ai was young; the artist remembers that everyone had a pocketful at any given time. Ai's installation of porcelain seeds draws from this cultural and personal history while reconsidering notions of obsessive actions without profitable results and globalization. Source: News, Jan Feb Mar 2013.
DimensionsDimensions vary
Accession Number 2012.76
Classificationssculpture
ProvenanceArtist; (Haines Gallery, San Francisco); Des Moines Art Center [purchased from the previous, 2012]
Kui Hua Zi (Sunflower Seeds)
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines.
Ai Weiwei
2017
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Ai Weiwei
2015
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Deborah Butterfield
1986
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Charles Joseph Biederman
1960-1966
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Dan Flavin
1975
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Louise Nevelson
1965
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Jaume Plensa
2007
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
David Smith
1961
Photo Credit: Rich Sanders, Des Moines
Tony Smith
1961, fabricated 1989