Sunflower Seeds

A new installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei now covers the floor at the far end of the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern:

 

Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain. 

Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. 

I tend to be a bit slow when it comes to grasping the deeper meaning of this kind of art work, but here the significance is, surely, immediately apparent. It's a critique of modern capitalism - right? Thousands of poor Chinese workers toiling for low pay producing silly worthless little gee-gaws for a decadent Western market - well, it's obvious, isn't it?...objects which, in themselves, have absolutely no intrinsic value, but are given value by gullible consumers who've been fooled into thinking that these objects have some kind of significance; that by viewing these glittery bits of trash as some kind of "art-work", a sort of insight or profound personal experience will be vouchsafed them - ie the usual obfuscatory nonsense by which the ruling classes maintain their hegemonic...

Hold on though: I may be wrong here.  An accompanying film portrays the seed-makers as a happy fulfilled bunch. Nothing they liked better, apparently, than going in day after day making tiny little porcelain seeds. And getting paid too! Whew! It was win-win all the way. And the whole point of these shows is for the artist to emerge as hero, as guide, as seer - not as some bastard grinding the faces of the workers. Nor are galleries like Tate Modern known for critiquing - mm, yes, I rather like that word - critiquing themselves. Irony? No, I don't think they do irony either.

OK, let's try again.

Seeds, millions and millions of the little buggers: a great undifferentiated mass spread out before us. Yes, we're told they're all different, all individuals, but, really, they all look the same. And made of that archetypal Chinese material, porcelain, and representing that favourite Chinese snack, the sunflower seed. It's a metaphor for China itself...right?

 

Um...a bit racist? OK, a metaphor for how Westerners typically see China. That's better. After all, there's nothing a sophisticated gallery audience likes better than to be told they're all racists....or orientalists, whatever. Seeing China as The Other.

But - back to that film again - artist Ai Weiwei doesn't seem at all political in that way. In fact he seems rather to like the West, and reserves his criticisms for Mao, and the Cultural Revolution and all that.

Oh dear. I'm going to need some help. And - wouldn't you know? - I'm in luck. Here's the all-important Interpretation Text, without which we are indeed as blind and helpless as new-born kittens:

Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds challenges our first impressions: what you see is not what you see, and what you see is not what it means. The sculptural installation is made up of what appear to be millions of sunflower seed husks, apparently identical but actually unique. Although they look realistic, each seed is made out of porcelain. And far from being industrially produced, 'readymade' or found objects, they have been intricately hand-crafted by hundreds of skilled artisans. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall's vast industrial space, the seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape. The precious nature of the material, the effort of production and the narrative and personal content make this work a powerful commentary on the human condition.

Ah. A powerful commentary on the human condition. I should have known...

For Ai, sunflower seeds – a common street snack shared by friends – carry personal associations with Mao Zedong's brutal Cultural Revolution (1966-76). While individuals were stripped of personal freedom, propaganda images depicted Chairman Mao as the sun and the mass of people as sunflowers turning towards him. Yet Ai remembers the sharing of sunflower seeds as a gesture of human compassion, providing a space for pleasure, friendship and kindness during a time of extreme poverty, repression and uncertainty.

Sunflower Seeds is a vast sculpture that can be gazed upon from the Turbine Hall bridge, or viewed at close range. Each piece is a part of the whole, a poignant commentary on the relationship between the individual and the masses. There are over one hundred million seeds, five times the number of Beijing's population and nearly a quarter of China's internet users. The work seems to pose numerous questions. What does it mean to be an individual in today's society? Are we insignificant or powerless unless we act together? What do our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future?

Deep questions indeed. And questions which, I'm embarrassed to admit, are rather a long way from my initial somewhat gauche interpretations of the work.

Hold on though. Can be gazed upon from the Turbine Hall bridge, or viewed at close range? This is rather different from the text actually inside the gallery. Here's that last paragraph as displayed there:

Sunflower Seeds is a sensory and immersive installation, which we can touch, walk on and listen to as the seeds shift beneath our feet. To touch one piece is to interact with the whole, a poignant commentary on the relationship between the individual and the masses...

What's going on? Well, this is what's going on: we were originally encouraged to walk all over the seeds, but not any more:

Update: Friday 15 October 2010

Although porcelain is very robust, we have been advised that the interaction of visitors with the sculpture can cause dust which could be damaging to health following repeated inhalation over a long period of time. In consequence, Tate, in consultation with the artist, has decided not to allow members of the public to walk across the sculpture. 

So by not being able to interact with the seeds, not being able to feel them crunch beneath my feet, I was denied the opportunity to appreciate for myself how poignant a commentary this was on the relationship between the individual and the masses. The bastards! No wonder I was on the wrong track. No wonder I hadn't been asking myself what it means to be an individual in today's society; or been pondering whether we are insignificant or powerless unless we act together; or questioning what our increasing desires, materialism and number mean for society, the environment and the future. I wasn't given the chance! I was denied the full artistic experience! If it wasn't free I'd be asking for my money back.

The positive reviews have been very much concerned with that interactive element. What now?

And, frankly, can we believe that somewhat implausible excuse? Or were they more concerned, as I cynically suspect, with people nicking those darling little hand-crafted seeds? Did the early visitors offer their own poignant interpretation of the piece by stuffing their pockets with lots of tiny individually-sculpted porcelain made-in-China authentic works of art?

I have to say, though, that I think I prefer the work the way it is now - all pristine and grey and austere. It's rather effective:

 

The idea of art gallery as playground - the slides and so on - was getting tedious. People pretending to be all excited about walking through a load of porcelain seeds, romping around like they were 4-year-olds back in the sand-pit...no, I'm not sorry to have missed that.

So....it's back to people staring at stuff from behind a barrier, quietly thinking their own thoughts to themselves:

 

A powerful commentary on the human condition? Hmm, yes, maybe....

Comments

[tolkein]

To think. When those cultural barbarians have finished looting and pillaging the Arts Council budget, exhibits like this will no longer be available to the masses. What are we to do?

[Judy]

Isn't this rather a powerful bit of propaganda for the Chinese regime? Eg producing installation artists who work with thousands of dedicated artisans in their cosy village homes to produce cutting edge. And how much did we pay for it? I was listening to a review of it on BBCR4 this evening, and the reviewer said that without being able to get close up to it, it just looks like a very large expanse of shag pile carpet. LOL.

[Mick H]

It's certainly an interesting question: how much the Tate paid for it. I can't imagine the Chinese regime being too pleased though: the artist does make his dislike of Mao fairly clear.

[Judy]

But that's the point: the Chinese regime these days tries to present itself as a benevolent rising innovative power in the world. It distances itself from Mao. This installation romanticizes, sanitizes and cosmeticizes China's role as a corporatist state managed sweatshop for the world, and celebrates a managed mass production facility based on highly controlled and politically repressed village sweated labour in the name of art. If China had been displeased you would have heard about it pretty quickly. In terms of its elements, it has a huge amount in common with the spectaculars produced for the start of the Beijing Olympics-- again, using vast numbers of people regimented into patterns and production output geared to impressing the global westernized media audience.

It's the choreographed mass parades and events of the totalitarian regimes of the 30s to the 50s morphed into productions compatible with the expectations and demands of today's global digital consumers. And the message: China is where the cutting edge of art is; China has found ways to make the Great Leap Forward from primitive village craft production to highly organized precision use of hand labour to realise mass-produced unique hand-crafted products. Multiple ironies indeed.

[Mick H]

Yes: very interesting analysis Judy. So the artist here provides a kind of sanctioned dissidence. As you say, multiple ironies.

[DaninVan]

" I really like that one over there on the left...about 8' back and 10' out. Can I see it please? How much is it?"
:)

[Will Jones]

Soooo, a bunch of other people actually created the porcelain seeds and this 'artist' just dumped them all over the floor. How controversial.

Just like over here in Sydney an sculptor was given a few million dollars to create an artwork in one of the parks. He was talking about his piece on camera while a bunch of builders/enginees were actually constructing it.

Am I missing something here about what an artist actually does now days? Are they simply a spokesperson for the ones doing all the work and don't actually physically create anything by the skill of their hands and sweat of their brow?