Ai Wei Wei. With Wind, 2014; installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz. Courtesy of FOR-SITE Foundation. Photo: Jan Stürmann.

This text is likely neither the first nor the last thing you will read about @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz. Substantial coverage began far in advance of the insurgent artist’s opening in late September, and the hype has continued steadily since. So it is not without reservation that I contribute another drop in the bucket. But for a project that professes to be predicated entirely on freedom—of thought and of speech in particular—the vast majority of the @Large analysis is, at best, cautiously complimentary, and, at worst, reductive and descriptive. A number of factors may be contributing to this reserved reception, including the scale and budget of the project, the number of volunteers and assistants who assembled and help maintain it, the exhibition’s lengthy duration, and the nuance of its touristic setting. A section of the project website is even dedicated to these statistics, stressing the impressiveness of the undertaking. While surely significant, these elements overwhelmingly eclipse criticism about the artworks themselves. And beyond the stats looms an implicit hesitation about evaluating such socially conscious intentions, or perhaps further, of critiquing an artist–activist–celebrity like Ai Weiwei—a figure who, ironically, professes to invite and value serious critique. So in the spirit of one of the exhibition’s taglines, “Liberty is about our rights to question everything—Ai Weiwei” (which literally appears on the commemorative luggage tag), this review will question some of the core works and motivations in @Large.

Read the full review here.

Imin Yeh. Paper Bag Project, 2013; handmade paper bag; 15 x 12 x 6 in. Courtesy of the Artist.

Proximities 3: Import/Export is the third and final exhibition in a series at the Asian Art Museum exploring the Bay Area’s perception of, and relationship with, an increasingly globalized Asia. In this last installment, curator Glen Helfand [Full disclosure: Helfand has been an Art Practical contributor] has assembled a formidable group of artists whose work responds to issues around manufacturing, labor, trade, and commodification. The exhibition covers plenty of ground: Amanda Curreri’s works reference her time in South Korea, Byron Peters collaborates with a Shenzhen-based company to create his digital work, Imin Yeh borrows her creative process directly from India, and Rebeca Bollinger displays objects inspired by Japanese culture. Meanwhile, Leslie Shows’ and Jeffrey Augustine Songco’s contributions take a more macro approach to the region, thereby allowing the exhibition to simultaneously hone in on more narrow, context-specific scenarios while still addressing the wider implications of our relationship with Asia as a region. Of primary concern remains our growing reliance on outsourcing, industrial manufacturing, and the mobility of both material and immaterial labor.

On the material side, Imin Yeh’s work Paper Bag Project (2013) reveals the painstaking process of creating a consumer object with a very short lifespan: handmade paper shopping bags. Yeh singlehandedly replicates a production process she witnessed while visiting a factory in India, and documents every step on video, from hand pulping the paper, to screen printing designs, to weaving the rope handles.  The finished objects hang in the exhibition space in a grid against a white wall, their subtle pearlescent texture nearly blending into the background. With the addition of the accompanying video, we become acutely aware of how easily we could (and often do) miss the detailed amount of labor that goes into such disposable objects. Yeh’s piece underlines the wide disparity between labor and the attribution of value in trade and globalized societies.

Read the full article here.

Ai Weiwei. With Wind, 2014; installation detail, New Industries Building, Alcatraz. Courtesy of FOR-SITE Foundation. Photo: Jan Stürmann.

This text is likely neither the first nor the last thing you will read about @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz. Substantial coverage began far in advance of the insurgent artist’s opening in late September, and the hype has continued steadily since. So it is not without reservation that I contribute another drop in the bucket. But for a project that professes to be predicated entirely on freedom—of thought and of speech in particular—the vast majority of the @Large analysis is, at best, cautiously complimentary, and, at worst, reductive and descriptive. A number of factors may be contributing to this reserved reception, including the scale and budget of the project, the number of volunteers and assistants who assembled and help maintain it, the exhibition’s lengthy duration, and the nuance of its touristic setting. A section of the project website is even dedicated to these statistics, stressing the impressiveness of the undertaking. While surely significant, these elements overwhelmingly eclipse criticism about the artworks themselves. And beyond the stats looms an implicit hesitation about evaluating such socially conscious intentions, or perhaps further, of critiquing an artist–activist–celebrity like Ai Weiwei—a figure who, ironically, professes to invite and value serious critique. So in the spirit of one of the exhibition’s taglines, “Liberty is about our rights to question everything—Ai Weiwei” (which literally appears on the commemorative luggage tag), this review will question some of the core works and motivations in @Large.

Read the full article here.