Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seeds at the Tate

[HelmetBlissta]

What a waste of time and resources, how big is this prat Wei Wei's ego ?

[WorldlyMusi]

If you wonder, this is how they are made: /watch?v=PueYywpkJW8

[HomuncuIus]

He was should thrown in jail for his name alone let alone that abomination he calls art

[UKfan1975]

@19008837 All i was worried was about the seeds so if they not real seeds then art can named whatever you want to call it.

[UKfan1975]

WHAT A WASTE OF SEEDS, ANYTHING FOR THE NAME OF ART

[sparkieemae]

Went to London. Went to the Tate. and...

I FUCKING MISSED THIS PIECE :(!

I. Hate. Everything.

[kenzlee16]

@sparkieemae hmmmf it was such an opportunity to go there, but it was very disappointing..hope i can go there! dont worry you will be there next time

[sparkieemae]

@kenzlee16 Yea, I was just there for a few hours though because I was on a school trip and we where visiting several museums a day.. so I didn't get to see much there :(

I'm planning on going back to London at some point and when I do I will spend all day and more if I need to at both the Tates.. they where amazing.

[Superelf0809]

people with no knowledge in art will be subjective towards its external meaninge.g. the 10 million painted sunflower seeds OMG!!!, instead of the inner or deeper meaning within it.

[Superelf0809]

people with no fuckin brain will think this artwork is shit, "made in China" to ask challenging questions, previously produced porcelain now it churns out the cheapest using mass-production techniques from the west. therefore, the technology made everything easy, efficent, fast and cheaper. it appears easy but it require time and skills. we have the freedom, but no personal freedom , where everybody the same. commenting on the quality of the relationship between individuals, society/government

[bennyfifty]

the seeds represent the hundreds and thousands, if not millions of people killed by communists and marxists

[typoconnection]

i really do hope no one took any sunflower seeds. so much work has been put into this artwork

[csmain]

Anyone know this sound track?

[lysol5555]

Come on Release Ai Wei Wei. Chinese government, can you even tell me what is his crime??

[leafblower2012]

Fascinating that most contemporary art from China is all about the "multiples".

[Vukartic]

release ai weiwei

[blueoystercult22]

miss you weiwei please go to freeaiweiwei. org

[appelezmoijoe]

"One hundred sixty million times a day, someone somewhere buys a Unilever product." From : homebasics.ca/fr/aboutus/intro­ductiontounilever/

[evaluo0301gmailcom]

Set ai wei wei free.

[Zitrone1212]

He is a great artist. Hi work is incredibly beautiful,intelligent,disturbi­ng,full of humor, full of Love for Nature and above all Love for people. Truly gentle spirit. Touching and uplifting. Just to dangerous for the Chinese Government

WHERE is Ai Weiwei?????

Will he end in prison like Liu Xiaobo and so many others?

[write2yibo]

great work! such simplicity of display, with so many different layers of interpretations..... human as individuals, real vs fake. chinese history from ancient time , mao's time and modern time industrialsation. mass productions 'made in china', created jobs for a small town where craftmanship is dying out....

such a pity we are not allow to touch it and listen to it change the landscape

[takadi]

This is just ridiculous...all painted by hand? Ai Weiwei doesn't do much for the chinese image with this, all he does is reinforce the chinese stereotypes of a mass, faceless horde of worker drones, both behind the art and of the art.

Him gathering the names of the thousands of earthquake victims, however, is a different story and is much more powerful

[yerk3]

@takadi Actually, the artisans he employed to paint the seeds were more than "worker drones," they were professional, multi-generational artisans from what was once China's most prestigious kiln town during imperial times. A lot of them had been out of work in recent years, reduced to making counterfeit Ming vases to make ends meet, and the sunflower exhibit actually gave their economy a boost.

[Cobra9876]

@takadi um? he isnt trying to do anything for chinas image...he is trying to bring forward the atrocities of china in art form

[gaiagale]

I wonder if people were paid to make and paint the sunflower seeds

...I went to China in 1980-81 ...one of the two international tours allowed into China ...looking at a parking lot for bicycles awed me in the same way that this has looking at it

...only a mind that has lived in an environment of purposefully designed uniformity such as China could conceive of this kind of display

I am awed by this ...at the same times I am overwhelmed on so many levels my ♥heart♥ hurts

thanks for sharing

[AndreLeCoz]

i dont get it, just a bunch of seeds? im waiting to be impressed.

[mystfire]

@AndreLeCoz 100,000,000 hand painted porcelain "sunflower seeds"..? im blown away.

[AndreLeCoz]

@mystfire if i took a shit on 100,000,000 turtles would that blow u away? it doesnt matter the effort, its the end result that matters, a bunch of seeds means nothing.

[21Hosey]

@AndreLeCoz A bunch of seeds means nothing? Tell that to the impovershed village that Weiwei employed to help create these seeds. Tell that to the Chinese people who appreciate the symbolism of the seeds. You probably couldn't inspire anything close to relative significance. Go take your shit and deposit it where it belongs: In your own mouth would be impressive.

[AndreLeCoz]

@21Hosey Iv got nothing against people who take inspiration from a bunch of seeds.....as lacking in creativity as that is.......but if you're going to make a case that he helped employ a bunch of people painting seeds and that made their lives all the more better, well.....ur a moron.

[21Hosey]

@AndreLeCoz Fair enough. Your opinion is what it is. In this case the minority. I usually don't entertain the Trolls, but I'm curious.... What DOES inspire you? Castro's beard? Political prisoners? Poverty? Trust Funds I bet... Moron.

[AndreLeCoz]

@21Hosey wtf u fag. i dont care for this piece of shit art and so now im pinned as some cunt whose entertained by peoples misfortunes? Go fuck urself u uneducated hack. Art is meant to be impressive, walking on a bunch of painted seeds does not impress me, sorry. I know better then to acknowledge failure as progress.....moron.

[21Hosey]

@AndreLeCoz I can't stop laughing at your choice of words!! You, kook, are a tool. Hook, line, and sinker... Don't go away mad, just go away. LOL

[AndreLeCoz]

@21Hosey fuck off u cunt, dont think you can come away from this thinking you're the better man. You're the moron who thinks painted seeds are inspirational so go fuck urself.

[21Hosey]

@AndreLeCoz Your adorable little rants suggest an enormous amount of passive aggressive self insecurity. Now I just feel bad for you. I bet anyone who knows you thinks your a big ball of negative energy. Enjoy the rest of your miserable life hating creativity. Goodbye!

[molinobeer]

a parrot would go crzy in there.

[karenjhaines]

It's the job of a true artist to indulge us, the viewer...to indulge our senses and our imaginations. I haven't been to the Tate to see this up close, but I think it is absolutely brilliant... a visceral experience to behold so many lives that the seeds represent. I hope this is a traveling exhibit... maybe it will come to Toronto!!

[Nottinghill2010]

What a waste of fucking effort. Just look around and ask if this is not a little indulgent and whether this effort could be put to better use?

[yerk3]

@Nottinghill2010 There are worse uses of time and effort.

[rainj0305]

the least thing an artist want is to associate his/her art with politics. As for the sunflower seeds' message:, in this case, I think Aiweiwei attempts to raise certain social awareness then politics consciousness. The each uniquely handcrafted sunflower seed represents the individual within a social sphere, yet when they are collectively assembled, we no longer see the individual seeds. if 10,000 of them are taken away, will you still notice? What makes this artwork awesome is the interaction.

[TamaraAndTheDemon]

I would have liked to have seen them and walked on them STUPID HEALTH AND SAFTEY

[as05ca]

why?



[TamaraAndTheDemon]

@as05ca

Why, What????

[as05ca]

@TamaraAndTheDemon

i am a designer, maybe i dont understand art but i see this as a waste of material and time

i might be wrong

but art needs purpose and a massage... right?

[TamaraAndTheDemon]

@as05ca

Well in think the reason for the art was he wanted the vistor to experience and contemplate the essence of his comment on mass consumption, chinese industry, famine and collective work.

And it had a political message which was every time you see chairman Mao in paintings sunflowers are all around him because this name means SUN, and the people around him in the party are the sunflowers.

Do you understand it a bit more???, ' smile' lol

[as05ca]

@TamaraAndTheDemon

thanks, that helps a lot, specially the Mao part

I personally prefer minimalism in everything, maybe that is why I don't like to see mass production "representing" mass production

I think art is when you represent a subject as simple as posiable

[TamaraAndTheDemon]

@as05ca

Mmmm not possible in the art world, yer the idea might be simple enough but if you ask them what it is they just reel off a load of bull shit

[yerk3]

@as05ca In a strictly utilitarian sense, all art is a "waste of material and time," and if humans were robots, that would be the case, but we're not robots, we have a psychological need for art.

[as05ca]

@yerk3 great analogy

but I think even art has limitations

i basically mean "less is more"

[yerk3]

@as05ca Less isn't necessarily more. It can be, but to treat it as if it were some universal precept doesn't make sense. Sometimes more is more.

[MoNoHair]

Saw this awsome work of art yesterday - but no one was allowed on it, unfortunately.

would have loved to do that.

[nuttyteacher]

@MoNoHair I went yesterday as U and loved it.I don't buy walking on the seeds for 5 mins represent a health hazard due to powder. I just wanted to roll on top of them!What I saw was security guys running after people who to took a seed as a souvenir. A shame that's the only way to interact. In some countries we eat lots of them.I connected to my childhood memories,among other things. I've commited twitter suicide but got a question 4 him.Should I go for twitter resurrection?hum

[gaiagale]

@MoNoHair why? ...the video says it is purposefully interactive

[greendressgirl]

lovely.

[lanceoyes]

Did you see a "Made in China" on it...

[ArT1Tuvsho]

wow!

[antonia3106]

fabulous and interactive and very creative!

[iceagefish]

Chairman Mao was the Sun, while tens of millions of Chinese people at that time were sunflowers turning towards him, that's the BBC expalin the political meaning of this artistic installation.

I'm the Chinese born 6 years after Mao died, my parents' generation was like sunflowers, while we are the 'seeds' of them. Feel like Ai Weiwei is putting us as his minimalism elements into this show, we look almost no different from one another in individual, but immense and intense as a whole. LOL

[ZirconCode]

@iceagefish BBC is full of crap, Ai Weiwei is actually very much against the current chinese government, go watch his TEDTalk.

[snifnscratch]

@iceagefish Perhaps Ai Wei Wei was hoping his sunflower seeds would grow and be nourished by a new sun, rather than the dying Mao sun

[weedandwine]

I want to go experience that. Costy flight fom Seattle to London though. Wonder what else could I do in London.

[Mazun]

It's cool cuz in this piece, the methods and process don't outweigh the finished piece. usually these guys go overboard with their methods and come out with conceptual jargon. nice atmospheric piece. cant wait to experience it

[USMCMIAMI]

Well......it's different.

[elentwin]

Amazing. Great choice, Tate. Forefront, as usual.

[Ollipopsicle]

spectacular.