Chinese artist Weiwei documents his time in prison

At the Rotterdam Film Festival, focused on debut and experimental films, the film “Space Miniatures” by the German classic Alexander Kluge was presented. The 91-year-old director arranged a mournful farewell to the first dog in space, Laika. The Kunsthalle is currently hosting a retrospective of Chinese artist, director and activist Ai Weiwei, In Search of Humanity. People of different cultures and ages talk about the future of a world that has fallen into fragments.

Weiwei’s exhibition features 120 iconic works from different years: painting, LEGO, sculpture, installations, photographs, video art. Everything is built on reflection, fragments of a past life, childhood memories associated with his father, the famous Chinese poet Ai Qing, his exile in Xinjiang province, and his own arrest in 2011. The first thing the visitor sees is a portrait of Mao Zedong, the defeated Chinese shrines. The ancient vessels bear the Coca Cola logo. Next is a photo triptych from 1995, where Weiwei personally breaks a vase dating back to the Han Dynasty to protest the Cultural Revolution. Chinese bicycles, produced in the country since the 1940s, form an installation that complements the image of Tiananmen Square. It is based on a carpet of locks, which newlyweds leave on the streets of different cities as a reminder of the consolidation of marriage bonds. The following sunflower seed carpet was created by Weiwei in 2010 from a million large porcelain seeds scattered on the floor.

A series of portraits created from LEGO construction kits accompany the visitor during a journey through the exhibition and lead to a room with a dry tree in the center, around which the “golden” signs of the zodiac are displayed – Aries, Taurus… The main theme for Weiwei remains the theme of migrants. In 2016, during the Berlin Film Festival, one could see the columns of the concert hall surrounded by orange life jackets, which are associated with the image of a migrant arriving in Europe. The author of the installation was Weiwei. In 2017, at the Venice Film Festival, he presented the documentary “Human Flow,” filmed on the Greek island of Lesbos, where a daily flow of refugees from all over the world arrives. An eternal wanderer himself, Weiwei left China, where he was accused of bigamy and economic crimes and was sent under house arrest. He lived in New York, and in 2015 he moved to Berlin. In his film, he asked questions: is Europe alive, will it be destroyed by migrants like Weiwei. The film infuriated some Europeans, who were suffocating from the “barbarian invasion.”

The whole room is related to what Weiwei experienced after his arrest in 2011 at Beijing airport and subsequent stay in prison. The artist documented in detail his daily life behind bars. There are several pedestals in the hall, reminiscent of mourning ones. You can go up a step and look through the small windows. The view from above changes, but it is always a cramped space with a sink and toilet, a bed, a table, two guards keeping an eye on the prisoner. They are nearby when he goes to the toilet and takes a shower. The jets of water resemble soapy rope. It feels like the prisoner is trying to take his own life in front of the guards. You need to stand in line for about ten minutes to get into a closed space where the space of the cell is reproduced in life-size – the same bed, sink, toilet…

Modern viewers increasingly perceive life and cinema in fragments of memories and flashing pictures. The festival featured the European premiere of So Unreal, a film directed by American director Amanda Kramer (Please Baby Please, Girls’ World), which resembles a kaleidoscope. Young Keanu Reeves on the screen, fragments of David Cronenberg’s 1999 film Existenza, documentaries, clips, computer games… “We are the gods of technology. First we create the form, and then it enters us,” says Amanda Kramer, who is trying to understand the relationship between cinema, humanity and technology. And it fascinates the viewer.

The German classic Alexander Kluge presented his “Cosmic Miniatures” in absentia, only from the screen. It’s not the right age to travel anymore. Once a representative of avant-garde art, of everything new and advanced, he made films reminiscent of the childhood of mankind. The film consists of changing pictures, star charts, endless titles and formulas. Montage of text and image is Kluge’s special style. Towards the end, a requiem will be played in memory of the first cosmonaut – the Soviet dog Laika, who went into space in 1957 and remained there forever. The living Laika will appear in newsreels and then in drawings. Other dogs in spacesuits will follow her to the stars. A funeral march will be performed in their honor. And now they are becoming space robots, picking up weapons, turning into monsters. Next comes a chapter about cats, who are also preparing to fly. In the documentary footage, Russian scientists, women in scrubs resembling cleaners, prepare animals for a scientific experiment, placing them in capsules reminiscent of mailboxes.

Kluge’s entire life, films and literary works are devoted to the prevention of disasters. As a child, he survived the American bombing in 1945, and this memory remained with him throughout his life. He spoke emotionally to the Rotterdam audience about the fragility of the world and the value of life, which he presented in disintegrating fragments.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29207 dated February 1, 2024

Newspaper headline:
Laika funeral, prison in miniature