The Beijing-born artist Ai Weiwei is best known for his conceptual, regime-critical artworks. In addition to installations and sculptures, his oeuvre also includes photographs, performances, film, and architecture. He deals with topics such as human rights, freedom of speech, and the environment, and attempts to establish multiple connections between traditional Chinese culture and the modern globalized world. These provocative interventions led him to be put under house arrest for weeks in 2010 and he was even imprisoned by the Chinese government in 2011.
The work offered here was created in the same year as part of the "Divina Proportione" series. The title of the series refers to a mathematical treatise by Luca Pacioli from the Renaissance with illustrations by Leonardo da Vinci. First published in 1509, the text discusses the application and significance of mathematical proportions in geometry, art, and architecture, which are expressed here in the perfect proportions of the Platonic body. Ai Weiwei's was inspired by a cat toy after which he modeled a geometric polyhedron out of wood. It was only after Ai Weiwei had completed his series of spheres made of squares and triangles that he discovered a very similar construction drawing by da Vinci. The structure and effect of these sculptures represent the purest form of mathematical elegance. Typically, Ai Weiwei combines something mundane with something very significant or traditional. Using a Chinese carpentry technique, the sculptures are put together without nails or screws. The woodworking technique, which dates back to the Ming dynasty, subtly references Chinese culture, particularly Chinese furniture art. Carved wooden parts are seamlessly interconnected using a complex system of joints. The type of wood he uses is also a reference, as Ai Weiwei uses Huanghuali wood, Chinese rosewood, which is traditionally used for exclusive pieces of furniture, thus allowing for several levels of interpretation. On the one hand, it evokes art-historical associations through the da Vinci reference in the title and the circular form, on the other, regional-historical associations through the technology employed. [MH/SM]