What Can Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds Tell Us About Individuality?

[@strzyzenierzemieslnikow4082]

I think it's worth mentioning that so many people worked on this piece that, as Weiwei said, soon everyone in the city where it was created knew somebody working on the sunflower seeds. It made it into some kind of a legend in this city and I think that's also what Weiwei had in mind.

[@Shawn.Grenier]

Absolutely! It was so absurd that the city, known to make porcelain vases and other sculptures, were bound to talk about the 100 million sunflower seeds. I find thay really cool!

[@ninamo3523]

And it was a source of income for 1,600 artisans in Jingdezhen, a town known for porcelain production.

[@iiibulamia5742]

Also I think it is important to mention ai weiwei as a person. He was teaching at the art university I studied at in Berlin, Germany and was exploitative to his students that afterwards he called them 'lazy' although he himself was never present in class. He is a manipulative businessman, with good ideas, but is far from what I consider to be virtues of an actual artist. He also uses racist and classist forms of language in order to be provocative, comparing berlin in recent 'die welt' interview as 'third-word country' saying about Berlin being dirty, "Nobody cuts a tree or sweeps the street there. Everything is so broken! And yet there are so many migrants in Berlin: Just give them a little money and let them do the work. " I find the over-exaggeration of quality, genius and praise of his work in western media is purely used as a weapon to further justify a building war between US/Western countries & China, and I think we should be more critical of what these discussions, as war is never a solution in fixing problems but only a tool of oppression.

[@shanghaitatoo]

Thank you for a different point of view! I grow up in China and I am familiar with the kind of language that very self-centered Chinese men , especially from an older generation, use. It's not very pleasant to be in the presence of them., I often found the same unpleasantness from Ai Weiwei's interviews and have been quite wary of him and his work. I think we need to be critical of every 'big' contemporary artists especially those who are very involved with politics, in this case including Ai Weiwei.

[@SourSourSour]

I don't have anything to say besides great video! Comment for the algorithm

[@Shawn.Grenier]

Thank you so much Marc! Your constant support helps a lot!

[@afroceltduck]

I eagerly anticipate Weiwei's response to the situation we're all in at the moment. I know he'll have one, even if it merely keeps it to himself.

[@aotoda486]

Thank you so much for this video! I view Ai Weiwei's works mainly through the political lens. _Everything_ I watch him do is somehow a critique of the Chinese Communist Party. Sunflower Seeds "must've" been a comment on the deceptive nature of cultural collectivism as the PRC forced Ai to conform to. But there also exists these interesting societal implications surrounding this concept of the contrast in our identities as persons and as human beings in general ( **IB flashbacks to "shared and personal knowledge"** ). While both of these ideas interpreted from the work center on the concept of individuality, it's a good reminder that beyond the notion that people simply perceive works of art differently ( _hey_ that ties into the work itself), the creators themselves could also have envisioned an array of themes that they intended their artworks to convey. Ai might be pretty bent on making his opinion of the Chinese government clear for all to see, but that doesn't automatically define all of his works which, in reality, I suppose you could say "give meanings to themselves". Anyways, I love your videos! I hope ya do keep 'em up. As far as I can tell, your material does reach into a relatively untapped part of KZbin content (you and of course Nerdwriter1, that is, haha) for quality informative videos (and _not_ lectures) about art history that both history buffs (such as myself) and artsies can enjoy!

[@itchylemon]

i was lucky enough to see this in the tate modern when i was a kid, unfortunately it was when interaction with them was banned. still had a great impact on me, just a shame the individuality of each seed was slightly lost

[@GustavoCalvo]

You inspired me for a new painting. Thank you Canvas

[@yurineri2227]

wow, it's really amazing how something as simple as sunflower seeds can have such a complex meaning, things like this are what makes me love art, also, great video btw, I really enjoyed it.

[@nomnomnommy2955]

This is an amazing , edifying video.

[@trevor1550]

Great video! Thank you for introducing me to this artist.

[@casalingalcolizzata]

The disposition of the sunflower seeds in the disc floret follows the golden ratio.

[@KayMcGrath-s8s]

Profound 🎨

[@MarieGoldberry]

I really enjoyed the video! I already knew most of this but it was entertaining to watch nonetheless. I think you could speak a bit faster or show emotions while talking. I personally enjoy it when I can hear what people are passionate about something but that is very subjective. At the same time, I did enjoy how calm you sound so this might be pointless criticism but I thought I'd let you know. Thanks for the great video :)

[@Shawn.Grenier]

Thank you very much for your input!! I'll definitely try to work on that next time I record myself :)

[@dansmith4984]

@@Shawn.Grenier meh to the comment above - your delivery style is your thing and a quintessential element to your videos . Pleased to see the subscriber numbers rising all the time - well deserved- awesome production values always in your videos.

[@Shawn.Grenier]

Aww thank you Dan! The subscriptions have indeed been rising! It's very exciting!!

[@MarieGoldberry]

@@dansmith4984 I think I made it very clear that I enjoyed this video. I think feedback is always helpful even if it just reassures you that you are doing it correctly already.

[@spyroschar.2294]

Very interesting video

[@ArtReviews]

Shame it only lasted in it's intended interactive capacity for a few days at the Tate before the potential health risks stopped people being able to touch it. Then again, it could be a blessing in disguise as I wonder how long it would have taken for a noticeable amount got nicked in a string of the world's most undetectable art thefts.

[@nataschavisser573]

I totally would have been one of the thieves.

[@Lucaslfm1]

Don't share the same love for sunflower seed, but, still love the videos. =D

[@616ShadowFox]

great

[@jynxyouowemeasoda5066]

*Me wearing my earphones at the start of the video eating food* WHO TF IS CHEWING WITH ME?!

[@claudemadrid4950]

The way I see this "installation" is : "100 million sunflower seeds looking at Ai Weiwei as the red sun"... To state it more clearly, I deeply dislike it 😀... just like I deeply dislike most of these institutional gigantic installations 😀... I've already stated in my commentary of Canvas' Philip Guston's shoes' video that I disagree with reducing human beings to objects and how replacing human beings who were victims of Holocaust by shoes or clothes is killing them a second time by doing the same thing the nazis did to them, reducing human beings to object in the first place and then transforming them into objects by killing them and burning their bodies so that the only thing remaining from them are "objects" they owned, the clothes and shoes that they were wearing before being assassinated by the "logical madness" of the nazis... In the case of this installation, the victims of Mao's "cultural revolution", which was actually due to a power conflict within the Chinese Communist Party, are reduced to objects which are fake sunflower seeds... and Ai Weiwei and the Tate Gallery actually are, respectively, the omnipotent Mao and the Chinese Communist Party from the Cultural Revolution... Because it's what Ai Weiwei and the Tate Gallery truly are in this "installation"... They both are oppressive powers using human beings as objects in order to get power... In their installation, actually made by thousands of human beings who had their identity and their work stolen by Weiwei and the Tate Gallery who sign and own this installation they haven't made 😀 The institutional "Contemporary Art" perfectly embodies neoliberal Capitalism... and neoliberal Capitalism is a form of totalitarism which is very close to nazism... An indeniable proof of it is how neoliberal Capitalism was calling the workers in the documents of the World Trade Organization's agreements until the early 2000's... workers were called "Titre 4 de fournitures", ("Title 4 of furnitures"), it's exactly the same thing as when the nazis were calling the Jews, "stück" ("pieces")... it's even worse than when the nazis called the Jews, and all the people they considered as "Untermensch" ("under-human"), "Figuren" ("puppets")... because, at least, "puppets" have a human shape, a human appearance... in this awful tale called Pinocchio, by Collodi, the puppet called Pinocchio can become human because it's a puppet made in the shape of a little boy (and because of a fairy in the story)... But when you are an actual human being who's called "Title 4 of furniture" in the international laws of neoliberal Capitalism, you will never recover the humanity that the international laws of neoliberal Capitalism has stolen from you... and the institutional "installation" by Weiwei and the Tate neoliberal Capitalist institution has the same "logical madness" that both the nazis had and neoliberal Capitalism still has... because, historically, Hitler and the nazis were the very first product of neoliberal Capitalism... they share the same love for the deshumanization of human beings... and they share the same love for gigantic-sized objects 😀, in one case, it's gigantic stadiums... in the other it's gigantic "installations" 😀... 100 millions fake porcelain sunflower seeds made by more than 1 thousand slaves who are all called Ai Weiwei... and are all owned by the Tate Gallery... no surprise if the shape of the "installation" might recall the shape of a pyramid 😀... or the shape of a gigantic turd. 😀

[@Scriven42]

Now I want a bag of spitz. I hope you're getting a cut! ;)

[@terrytomxon1981]

I think that real story is more interesting then your reinterpretation of his artwork.

[@jayphleming5816]

That was gross. But, like weiwei, very worth the time. Thanks.

[@fuvbk6230]

Möö

[@handsome_man69]

I stole one of the seeds