Ai Weiwei's Blog. Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009, The MIT Press, 2011

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Ai Weiwei’s Blog

Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009

Edited and translated by Lee Ambrozy

Cambridge Massachusetts and London, The MIT Press, 2011, pp. xxviii + 307

(Review by Francesco Mazzaferro)

[Original Version September 2014 - New Version April 2019]

Fig. 1) The volume with writings, interviews and digital rants, edited by Lee Ambrozy and published by MIT press in 2011

The volume by Ai Weiwei collects the English translation of 112 out of more than 2,700 posts in his blog, inaugurated by the Chinese artist in October 2005 and censored by authorities end May 2009. 

From the inside front cover: “In 2006, even though he could barely type, China’s most famous artist started blogging. For more than three years, Ai Weiwei turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographical writings. He wrote about the Sichuan earthquake (and posted a list of the schoolchildren who died because of the government’s “tofu dregs engineering”), reminisced about Andy Warhol and the East Village art scene, described the irony of being investigated for “fraud” by the Ministry of Public Security, made a modest proposal for tax collection. Then, on May 28, 2009, Chinese authorities shut down the blog. This book offers a collection of Ai’s online writings translated into English – the most complete, public documentation of the original Chinese blog available in any language.

The New York Times has called Ai “a figure of Wahrholian celebrity.” He is a leading figure on the international art scene, a regular in museums and biennials, but in China he is a manifold and controversial presence: artist, architect, curator, social critic, justice-seeker. He was a consultant on the design of the famous “Bird’s Nest” stadium, but called for an Olympic boycott; he received a Chinese Contemporary Art “lifetime achievement award” in 2008 but was beaten by the police in connection with his “citizen investigation” of earthquake casualties in 2009. Ai Weiwei’s Blog documents Ai’s passion, his genius, his hubris, his righteous anger, and his vision for China.”

The father, the exile to Xinjiang and the youth experience in the United States

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957. His father is Ai Qing, today celebrated as one of the masters of Chinese “new poetry”. Originally painter, he decided to become a poet. He was Christian, he had spent a few years in Paris between the 1920s and 1930s, was highly cultivated, mastering French and German literature and philosophy, with a specialisation on French poetry  (Rimbaud, Verhaeren, Apollinaire) and German philosophy (Kant and Hegel). He also learnt in Paris the Russian poems of Majakovskij and Esenin. Back to China, he took side for the Communists against the nationalists (and was arrested by the latter) and entered into military resistance to the Japanese, knowing Mao Zedong and entering into the Communist Party. However he fell in disgrace in 1957 also under the communist regime and was persecuted during the so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’. He was sent into internal exile, in one of the Chinese coldest regions, forced to live in the poorest conditions and condemned to daily clean the communal toilets for his village for years. Ai Weiwei recalls in the blog that he often accompanied his father to that really painful task, and the father was leaving once the toilettes had been really perfectly cleaned. 

Ai tells us that he learned the basic of space and architecture in those years. “Put simply, my earliest experience with architecture was when I was eight years old, and we were ‘sent down’ to Xinjiang; as punishment we were forced to live in an earthen pit. I think that in political circumstances like those, living underground can provide an incredible feeling of security – it was a pit dug right in the ground, in the winter it was warm, and in the summer it was cool. (…) I remember some details: on one occasion, because there was no light in our earthen pit, my father was descending into our home and smashed his head on a roof beam. He fell immediately to the earth on his knees with a bleeding forehead. Because of this, we dug out one shovel’s depth of dirt, an equivalent to raising our roof twenty centimeters. Architecture requires common sense, a ton of common sense. Because we were a family of readers, we needed a bookshelf in our home, and my father dug out a hole; in my opinion that was the best bookshelf” (p. 53).

Fig. 2) The Italian translation, published by Johan & Levi in 2012 and edited by Stefano Chiodi

The father was rehabilitated in 1979, when he was appointed vice-chairman of the Chinese Writers Association. He travelled on the same year to Europe again, to France, Italy and the Federal Republic of Germany. He visited our country twice in the same year, also composing poems on Florence and Venice. To make clear how independent his spirit was, he did not refrained from writing religious Christian poetry and after the visit to the Federal Republic of Germany even a poem on the Berlin wall. In conclusion, Ai Weiwei inherited from the father a sense for lyrics and poetry, for independence of art from politics, and of resilience to pressure.  I would not exclude that his father also transmitted to him an interest for art and culture in Europe (as shown by his intense cooperation with artists and architects from several European countries). Nevertheless, when he decides to leave China in 1981, he opts for the United States, where he remains until 1993.

In the USA, Ai Weiwei is immediately confronted with the exciting art life of New York, where he gains interest for art performance based on manipulation of objects and techniques. As already mentioned, he is greatly impressed by Marcel Duchamp and Andy Warhol, the dada movement and commercial art. The sense for resilience inherited by the father is therefore exponentially enhanced, becoming sense for pure provocation. The sense for poetry and lyrics becomes capacity to create diverse emotions and excitement in the public. While he fails to finish his studies at the Parsons School of Design, he manages nevertheless to become an integral part of New York’s art scene (even he says it was “in” the art scene, but not part “of” it, see page 19 of the introduction). He comes back to China when it becomes clear that the father has serious health problems. In the USA he has learned how to provoke and communicate, and from the father he has inherited the capacity to resist any consequence.

Reflecting on that experience, Ai Weiwei writes: “I never had a proper education, and having been excluded from the mainstream society since my youth, I’m rather suspicious of social values. When investigating problems, I bring my own point of view, one that is completely outside of the system. In the dozen or so years I was trifling around in the United States I was never able to integrate completely in its framework. Upon returning to Beijing, I am still an outsider. I don’t think that being “independent” is a bad choice, it means you treat yourself well, and there’s nothing compelling you to abandon your basic point of view or your fundamental common sense” (p. 81).

The figure of Ai as a political dissident is well known. Ai is most known for his provocative art performances, his engagement as a human right defender and his severe critic of Chinese political and social system. He was arrested in August 2009, in August 2010, in November 2010 and April 2011. In April 2011 he was detained for 81 days. In June and September 2012 he was condemned to extremely severe sanctions for a presumed tax evasion, which are widely considered as an attempt to impede any continuation of his art activities.

The blog

“The blog initially appealed to him as a chance to explore his literary talent, which he had been curious about because of his father’s career as a poet” (p. 21 introduction). However, reading the blog is not a curiosity, as Ai Weiwei tells us “I spend ninety percent of my energy on blogging” (p. 17 introduction). After the blog was censored, he started microblogging through Twitter (which has a limitation of 140 characters but – as noted by the editor – permits much more extensive covering of topics in Chinese thanks to ideograms: Mao’s famous thoughts rarely exceeded 140 ideograms). The introduction of the volume also stresses that “the impact of the Internet on Ai Weiwei’s artistic practice is indelible” (p. 24 introduction), as I could myself notice in the recent Berlin exhibition “Evidence”, where the names and messages of all those responding to his internet call for support, providing him with financing – after he had been put under criminal enquiry and condemned for tax evasion – were displayed as wallpaper on the walls in several rooms of the Martin Gropius House.


Fig. 3) The Italian E-Book, published by Doppiozero in 2012 and edited by Stefano Chiodi

The blog is of course an occasion to dwell on very different topics, from art to politics and society. On the question of liberty, human rights and justice (which is very topical since Ai considers art as being always political by definition) I would recommend to read the blog entitled “The Longest Road” at pages 25-26: it recalled me the famous 1784 pamphlet of Immanuel Kant on “An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?" (https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/What_is_Enlightenment.pdf). I do not know whether Ai Weiwei ever read Kant (his father Ai Qing certainly did), but notoriously, great minds think alike. On Andy Warhol, I would advise to read the 4-page blog on him at pages 127-130.

The coordinates of a free mind

Reading the blog, it is evident that there are at least five features charactering the way Ai conceives life and art Let us review them.

First, on the way to organise an artist life: “My life is characterized by having no plan, no direction, and no goals. Some people wonder, how can that be okay? But in truth, this is very important: I can throw myself into the things that I like, and because there are no obstacles, I can never be trapped (p. 51).

Second on the concept of art, which is seen as a game where the artists must keep all options available, at his disposal. “Artists are not beauticians. They are not obliged to provide services to anyone, they do not need to create pleasing scenery. Art is a type of game – you either play the game or you pass. It is up to you. The relationship between art and the people is a normal relationship in which neither side serves the other and the only difference between public art and ordinary art resides in the fact that public art is placed in a nonprivate space. (…) It does not serve the public. It could be targeted at the public, but it could also completely ignore the existence of a public. Here, art has simply made effective use of a public spatial environment. It does not have an obligation to beautify or to adorn.” (p.8) This may look like a simple tribute to the “art for art’s sake”, but – as the editor tells us – it is also a strong reaction to the Leninist notion that “art should serve the public” (p. 256 Note 3),

Third, on the combination of concepts like ‘common sense’ and ‘experience’, which are all extraneous to the academic world. “The thing most often lacking in design is actually common sense, including large concepts like good and evil or right and wrong, and down to little details like materials, craft, or the capacity to determine the value of one’s design. The preconditions for having such common sense is many years of experience – engineering, aesthetic, and social experience” (p. 50).

Fourth, on the need to simplify. “Because I’m a rather simple person, the activities that I encounter don’t require me to use my intellect, and I’m very fortunate that, generally speaking, nothing requiring the heavy use of my intellect comes my way. The affairs of architecture and interior design are quite simple, as you merely need to rely on intuition and the simplest craft to complete your task” (p. 49).

Fifth, on freedom in the terms of use of styles, with a focus on the capacity of the artist to overcome, reduce or play with the limitations of techniques and materials. “Rarely do I strive for a particular style, yet at certain times, my circumstances will exert a particular strong influence on me. The things you create – including their limitations – are all embodied through your state of existence. I seek to eliminate those limitations through various alterations, or to make them more obvious: this is entirely possible, and is also another form of expression. I do not have a clear style, nor would I limit myself to popular ones. Life itself is more exuberant, more meaningful that any style imaginable” (p. 21).

“My design possesses a special characteristic: it has leeway and possibility. I believe this is freedom. I don’t like forcing my will upon other people, the ways that you allow space and form to return to their fundamental states, allow for the greatest amount of freedom. This is because fundamental nature cannot be erased, and outside of that, I don’t believe anything else should be added” (p.49).

On architecture in China

The issues which Ai Weiwei discusses in the blog go however much beyond architectural design. He has a twofold approach. On the one hand, an ontological one: “The problems of construction are in fact of a philosophical nature” (p. 7) and “architecture has always been, and will always be, one of the humanity’s fundamental activities: the action of participating in a transformation” (pp. 10-11); “good architecture necessarily has spiritual implications, because the way in which we view the world and the conclusions we arrive at determine who we are” (p. 12). “To discuss what we call the city is actually to discuss the spirit of humanity, the spirit of a collective, and its fantasies and confusion” (p. 78). On the other hand (and our focus will be here), a clear understanding of current developments and their long-lasting implications: “In every sphere of its influence, this nation [note of the editor: China] – whose architectural output has recently surpassed the sum total of its entire architectural output over its combined thousands of years of cultural history – is currently displaying all the charm of a famished beast. China is consuming one half of the world concrete and one third of the world’s steel (…)” (p. 3).

Ai’s main argument is that “Chinese architectural practice, aside from just barely managing to solve the basic demands for sheltering its people, has no spiritual substance or cultural legacy” (p. 4) In other terms, a generation is building as much as it has never been the case, however without any autonomous art creation power, i.e. exclusively referring to “avant-garde culture and mature technological resources gained from abroad.” (p. 4). It cannot be differently, in many respects, because “all cities in C Nation [note of the editor: China] inherently maintain a faithful record of the scars left by authoritarianism. (…) Their creators and their landlords are victims of their own idiocy and base behaviour, and as a result of their non-existent conscience and lack of common decency” (p. 28).

Fig. 4) The German version of the blog, published with the title "Do not make yourself any illusion on me. The prohibited blog" by Galiani Publishers (2011) and edited by Worlfram Ströle, Norbert Juaraschitz, Stephan Gebauer, Oliver Grasmück and Hans Freundl.

Worse, new constructions are made by massively demolishing surviving old towns, and therefore altering the substance of China’s history. Authorities take the view that what is destroyed is not sufficiently beautiful to be preserved, and vaunt the merits of modern architecture also in aesthetic terms. Ai radically disagrees: “For so many years, the primary affairs of state in C Nation [China] have been focused around demolition (p. 31). There are many misunderstandings in Beijing; for example (…) protecting ancient architecture isn’t just to improve the scenery, and nor is it to give the city a competitive edge, it is because people need to remember. When we confront an old city and ancient architecture, we cannot simply discuss the value of cultural merchandising while refusing to face authentic cultural issues. The livability of the city is not a question of its physical appearance: if a city is irrational, inhumane, unsympathetic, and cannot treat others with benevolence, what good is a pretty face? A city is for its inhabitants, multifaceted people with fragmented, petty emotions, and who by right should have the potential to enjoy the use of the city, the potential to communicate and to make demands” (p. 32).

Preserving ancient architecture is of primordial value for Ai, in a country which is to the contrary pursuing massive urban renewal. “An uproar is raging over the issue of preserving ancient architecture. On one hand, this is a reaction to the ruthless development, and on the other, it is the need to create an urban identity that any competitive city must put forward, least of all to attract economic growth” (p. 55).

For an Italian reader, the obvious similarities with Adriano Olivetti’s writings and his Community Movement in the late 1950s – early 1960s are striking: see http://www.fondazioneadrianolivetti.it/lafondazione.php?id_lafondazione=1

Ai Weiwei has very severe words on Chinese architects as lacking fantasy and confidence, Beijing as a very inhospitable town, and the widespread (and for him completely erroneous view) view that “China has become an experimental playground for foreign architects” (p. 54). There are only two exceptions. First, the China Central Television tower, by the Dutch architects Rem Koolhaas and Ole Scheeren; and second, the Olympic stadium “Bird’s Nest”, by the Swiss Herzog & de Meuron. Both in Beijing.

On the first building, Ai writes: “The new CCTV tower fills the city with a sense of fantasy and insecurity. Insecurity is a characteristic of modern cities; the countryside does not know this kind on insecurity because it is unique to urban centres. Cities should have areas that generate this kind of instability. ‘Instability’, ‘disharmony,’ and ‘sense of danger’ are all positive words. My understanding of a ‘harmonious society’ is one in which all ‘inharmonious’ elements can exist simultaneously, allowing all contradictions and diversity to be displayed. A homogeneous society cannot be harmonious” (p. 80). The editor alerts us that the concept of ‘building a socialist harmonious society’ was one the leading policy directive of President Hu Jintao in 2004.

As already mentioned, Ai Weiwei acted as artistic consultant for the “Bird’s Nest”: “When I agreed to join, the preparatory work was already completed, and the time had come to make a decision. I simply asked: What do you need me for? They told me they needed my opinion. Owing to my participation, the results of their previous discussions were altered dramatically, including the basic concept, shape, construction, issues of structure, and function of the stadium, including the exterior form and cultural characteristics. We connected on many aspects, and because we thought the possibility that the proposal would be accepted was rather small, bravely absorbed unfamiliar methods. In the end, the project was successful. Before I came home, they told me that they had originally hoped to take a step forward, but ended up taking two” (p. 55).

Architecture and city planning

Architecture and urbanism are strictly correlated. “Architecture is not just an issue of architecture; it is also a social issue, and a statement on an era’s identity. The shape of a city’s architecture shares an important relationship with its cultural status” (p. 52). Towns are made richer – Ai Weiwei says - by the diversity of the needs they satisfy, than by any attempt to organise them in a rigid planning. “I do not believe that ideal cities or ideal architecture exist, I can only say that meaningful, significant cities do” (p. 53). His ideal can be described as a “natural” city: “Different groups in the city form a natural relationship with their surroundings, creating a competitive ecology, and these are not prescriptive relationships. It is inevitable that cities will have high-density districts, areas with traffic congestion or thin population, or several centres. (…) The ideal future society would ensure the rights and individual characteristics of all the people, and allow them to develop. Only in such a time can pluralistic and abundant cities emerge (…)” (pp. 79-80). “When cities are taking shape, they become home to all kinds of people: the poor, the rich, the struggling, a leisure class – they’re all there, and they compose a very ordinary society“ (p. 84). Ai adds: equal respect for all, but no obligation to form a society of equals.

The main category along which an architect has to make his judgement is the understanding of space. “The most important factor in architecture is space. The relationship between space and subject, the relationship of space to other space, the beginning, continuation, transformation, and disappearance of space (…) Our understanding and description of a given space originates in our understanding of things that will one day occur in the given space. This includes the reasons why events occur and the reactions they provoke. To understand space is to be human” (p. 5). “Space is intriguing, because while it can be materialised, it simultaneously has its psychic implications. Many people think that a high, big space is ideal, but that isn’t always the best. Small spaces have their own small ambience, low has a low atmosphere, narrow has its own narrow feeling – every space has its special characteristics, and each space has its own potential” (pp. 50-51).

While space is a key, style and form are much less. “Architecture comes in all forms, but it is never form for form’s sake. (…) I make stringent demands on the fundamentals of space and it dimensions; I have few strict requirements about art. I don’t aspire to be surrounded by precision, and my own life experiences have little to do with precision, but I do aspire to rationality and reason in art“ (p. 85).

“Architecture serving as a home is a place filled with one’s individual character. Different from any concocted meaning of ‘home’, it is an independent, inclusive entity that deserves to be respected. It embodies the free will of all those therein and may represent the modern pursuit of comfort and the independent mind. The interior and exterior of a home are linked by the relationship that joins them as an integral entity. In any such structure, mutual respect and communication exist between the home and its environment, the street, the neighbourhood, and everybody who lives there together. The logic of its construction is intrinsically organic and everything is derived from a common origin. It achieves true power through this fact, allowing it the refusal to imitate a single architectural style, or a single cultural form” (pp. 61-62).


Fig 5). The Brasilian edition of Ai Wei Wei's blog, published by Martin Fontes (Sao Paulo) in 2013 and translated by Cristina Cupertino

This definition of ideal architecture – which in reality opens the article “Ordinary architecture” - might be an excellent description of the Ordos 100 project, for which Ai Weiwei and his company FAKE design planned, in cooperation with the Swiss Herzog & de Meuron, the construction of an entire city on desert sands in the Chinese region of Inner Mongolia, starting from a nucleus of 100 different buildings, each of which designed by a different architect, (all plans are described in http://www.archdaily.com/22039/ad-round-up-ordos-100-part-i/).  

The plan has completely failed by now. Only one out of 100 projects has been completed, attracting severe criticism also outside China (see: Austin Williams, Hollow Promises: The Ghost Town Ai Weiwei Built, in The Architectural Review, September 2013 http://www.architectural-review.com/comment-and-opinion/hollow-promises-the-ghost-town-ai-weiwei-built/8652315.article). There is no explicit mention to Ordos 100 in any of the blogs published by MIT Press, while the project is shortly described in the introduction by the editor Lee Ambrozy (p. 21 of the introduction).

Architecture and installations

The borders between architecture and visual arts are really permeable. Ai Weiwei uses architectonic elements to create installations, as parts of a “unique dialogue with Beijing’s current conditions” (p. 41). This is the case for “Fragments of a temple” of 2005. “The wood I employed for my installation is fragments of pillars and beams from hundred-of-years-old temples originally located in the south of China” (p. 41). “These original temples were built according to very moral, aesthetic, and strict standards. But now the same materials are rearranged in a random and temporary way, in an irrational and illogical structure. It seems like it has a big, gaping wound; you almost don’t know whether it’s alive or not” (p. 43). “Everybody knows that each architectural element in a temple has a precise order. The fragments have no functional relationship to each other; the whole structure serves no purpose at all” (p. 44).

Similarly, Ai presented at the 2007 Documenta 12 in Kassel a sculpture entitled ‘Template’, made out of century-old doors and windows of demolished houses in China.

On the same year, he produced “Monumental Junkyard”, a marble installation resembling “a junkyard of building material that is typically evident in the suburbs of Chinese megacities.” (see http://www.e-flux.com/announcements/presents-ai-weiwei-monumental-junkyard/). It is not mentioned in the volume, but I saw it this year in Berlin at the “Evidence” exhibition.

Architect until 2016, poet for ever?

In the article entitled “Here and now”, Ai Weiwei announces on 10 May 2006 his intention to stop his activity as an architect. “After I finish working on the architecture projects that I’ve already committed to, I will not accept additional projects. I dislike the entire building process, and I could be doing something else (…). This kind of success makes me embarrassed; after all it’s the general ‘inferiority’ pervading the profession that makes me successful – what am I still doing in this field?“ (p. 52). “Erecting a few more shoddy buildings doesn’t really achieve much. Originally, I had hoped I’d be inspired, but in practice it is actually extremely tiring. Architecture is not a one-man show, it involves the whole of the society, touches on various different realms, and leads one into endless frustration.” (p. 54).

We do not know whether he will stick to this announcement or if we are confronted – once again – with one of his intellectual provocations. If Ai’s father was a painter who became a poet, the five quotations by Ai Weiwei just displayed let me think whether he also is not an art creator with great poetic talents. Poetry based not on verses, but on the combination between real artistic events and online texts. Poetry which can talk to the heart of everyone in this planet. For ever.