The Art of Play with Ai Weiwei: An Interview

At Vito Schnabel Gallery, I talked with legendary conceptual artist, social activist and genuine provocateur Ai Weiwei about, among many other things, his new exhibition, “Child’s Play,” which runs through February 22. It showcases pixel-like Lego wall works of reimagined classic paintings and headline news that question the construction of our very reality. Our wide-ranging discussion has been edited for clarity and length.

Stephen Wozniak for Observer: Child’s Play is an extraordinary show featuring big art and even bigger themes. You’ve worked with Legos for over ten years. These toy blocks seem like a truly fun, colorful and infinitely possible medium. What do they represent to you, and how do you think audiences perceive them?

Ai Weiwei: First, I always like to have a new possibility… to use a new language. Because, you know, the act and goal of painting has mostly been the same for years: to make the image look real, right? At least in the beginning of art.

But that’s not your goal. 

That’s not my goal, but the problem is in the question, “What is real? Is art real, or is there a new reality?” So, I realized a Lego can do the job of presenting this question. It’s industrially made, and it’s structured. Also, they’re created by a computer—made from a digital design. So, the corresponding image pixels can be precisely located or identified to make my art out of Lego bricks. That language not only relates to the earlier Roman or Greek mosaics but also relates to new technology like the Internet and the pixel…

…and digitalization.

Right. So, it creates a very interesting image. I like it because it’s much more detached.

And Legos have about 40 colors. This limits the color choices, so you have this great, rich imagery making.

Do you think the limited Lego color palette helps exaggerate or diminish some of the imagery in the original classic paintings you’re quoting from in your new works? Is your work partially about that? 

Yeah, it’s questioning—among other things—how we interpret colors. Indeed, it is limited, so I really have to make adjustments when we try to fix some of the images. Our brain has to work with our eye, so that brings an activity—like a physical activity, an effort—to adjust. That is a very interesting act, and that’s something I don’t find often in painting.

Your works over the years have dealt with ideas about perception, truth-telling and signifiers, which often have been created sculpturally, enabling audiences to engage with them in real, dimensional space. These new Lego works, as color-limited and rectilinear as they are, still seem somewhat sculptural and dynamic. They are not quite two-dimensional and not quite three-dimensional. They feature that patterned, knobby Lego texture, and they also float off the wall, casting shadows, which I think is interesting. Like your other work, the new work almost provides this tangible existential moment for the audience. Is that intentional?

Painting can be very flat. You see what you see, right? And with Legos, it is not what you see. Your eyes are always shifting and changing. So that makes the game more interesting—of looking, you know, at least a way of looking.

You obviously want the viewer to participate in the act of seeing, and they can do this by trying to understand how the work is made. Everybody has some toy-building and digital gaming experience, so that attempt to understand becomes interesting when looking at the work. But it’s not just about construction; it’s about deconstruction at the same time—and that is quite interesting.

It is interesting. What do you think audiences will get from the work? 

In my focus, I relate to aesthetics, which—you know—is how people make judgments about what is important visually or why people value certain things more than other things. I also see cultural activities—like judgments—as readymades, as much as, say, Duchamp’s inverted urinal piece, Fountain. So, I think of political happenings and situations, social issues and other issues as readymades.

As an individual, you have to use a language that will give you your own expression. That is very important. So, you need to carry out that impression because then you really become an individual. Otherwise, you’re not an individual—you’re the product of man’s consumption ideas. So, finding a language and being skillful at it is the first step to being an artist.

Obviously, this is a charged political and power-centered moment right now in the U.S., as it is all over the world. I mean, it is unavoidable. What’s your perception of how American politics are being covered in the media right now?

I think ‘media’ means a few different things. When we talk about television news media or written media, they are perceived differently.

I would say we’re talking about broadcast news media or perhaps social media. 

Social media, to me, is just pixels. But to really create a narrative, to carry out some real sense, it’s not easy because there’s so much noise. Also, there’s a lot of information out there that’s simply not real or just made from the imagination of the media.

Yeah, there is a lot of that.

But still, you need a clear definition of the news media because it doesn’t matter what’s on the news—it still refracts our judgment. We hope the news doesn’t just report anything that is happening. The news media should only select what makes sense—and then talk about that.

Often the news media reports on stories that promote power—or the division of power. 

Yes, most stories on the news reflect power and value judgments.

What do you think the role of the political avant-garde is in the West in relation to the East? In the West, it seems that political art matches party politics of the left. Is that true in the East—that the more outspoken work is considered leftist, or is that not quite right? 

Well, I will say that the avant-garde is a Western idea. I cannot see it very much in the East today—and in ancient China, there was no such contemporary argument.

In the classic sense, the so-called “avant-garde” only means an extreme individual. I think nothing can be more avant-garde, however, than being an individual. So, the avant-garde is not just a kind of thinking—or even a fashion.

So, it’s not just an expression; “avant-garde” defines your individualism in some concrete way. 

While the word “avant-garde” is like being on a frontline as an individual, you don’t have to be. You just have to be unique or different from others.

The individual doesn’t have to fight on the cultural or political frontline—instead, that person just has to be different. 

Right. That’s an interesting point—because there’s no front or back. It’s really most important to find yourself, to locate yourself.

To locate yourself within the cultural and social centers.

Yes.

Do you feel that the best art is anti-establishment art? Do you think it’s pro-freedom, or are there no words for what art is that helps you define that individual in the middle of all this? Is there a way to identify what that is? 

I think those are big words. What is “establishment,” what is mainstream thinking, what becomes trendy and what does it mean to be accepted? Or even untouchable?

“Untouchable,” as in the caste system?

That means, in a certain sense, you cannot even question it.

But art is about using an innocent approach that comes from an immediate response—like making a portrait—which is a very important human activity because it refuses to conform and accepts being subversive.

If you could give your 25-year-old self a piece of advice, knowing what you have experienced today, not just as an artist, but as someone who’s seen a lot of other big changes in the world, what would you say to yourself? 

I would tell myself, as a young man, that you have to be passionate. Even if you’re totally confused or you do not know what to do, you also have to be really willing to sacrifice something. Nowadays, education for younger people is about how to become a success, but I think the willingness to be a failure is more important.

And that would be something you would tell yourself as a younger person—you’d suggest truly engaging in that failure?

Oh, yeah. I’m just a failure. Being a failure means it’s okay to be afraid, but you have to protect your integrity, and so you must have a little ideology.

Like a moral compass?

It means you’re willing to be different and make the sacrifice of being different. That implies not being accepted and, very often, that is very difficult. But I think you don’t lose anything being an individual.