Sunflower seed installation

June Debin, Megan Lorraine. Praun, Tessa. I remember being amazed by scale of the project and thinking how crazy it was to be at such a level of success in the art world to be able to have a project like this funded and completed.

I compare him to the Japanese artist Tekashi Murakami, one of my favorite artist who has also gained fame from referencing his countries history and culture in his work. Murakami dabbles in many mediums between large sculpture and murals and he usually just designs the work and has a team who actually paints and builds whatever he has come up with.

Beyond the ideology, I love sunflower seeds aesthetically, especially when it was an interactive piece. I never got to see the exhibit in person, but I probably would have tried to steal one of the seeds. The symmetry and smoothness is pleasing.

It is interesting learning that they are an ode to Mao. You must be logged in to post a comment. Log in to Reply. Leave a Reply Cancel reply You must be logged in to post a comment. The flat landscape of the porcelain sunflower seed husks covered the entire stretch of the eastern end in the Turbine Hall.

Visitors walking across the surface were overwhelmed to discover million seeds individually real-like handcrafted porcelain seeds specially produced for the event. This installation has been the largest artwork of porcelain and was also amongst his most prized exports. Although the seeds appeared identical from a distance, each of them was different. They were products of hours of hard work and intricate craftsmanship by skilled artisans.

For their perfection and accuracy, they were far from being attributed to industrially made products. In this video Ai Weiwei gives insight into the background and production process of one of the most spectacular exhibitions of , Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern. Follow the artist to the city of Jingdezhen in northern Jiangxi, China, where all of the sunflower seeds have been individually hand-sculpted and hand-painted.

The installation in London is made out of millions five tons of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds. Each actual-size seed is unique and intricately hand-formed and like those shown at Tate Modern painted in Jingdezhen. Attributed as the Seeds of Hope , the installation was both sensory and immersive. Visitors were allowed to touch the seeds, walk on them, and listen to the sound as the seeds shifted under their feet.

Ai Weiwei created a deceptively unified field with a large number of individual seeds. The tactile and engaging nature of the seeds raises many pertinent questions about the world around us. How do we contribute as an individual to our society? Do we need to act together to stay strong, significant and powerful? Are we heading towards a promising future with our increasing desires and materialistic outlook? Ai Weiwei always believed that an individual must set an example for society to follow.

Through the presentation, Ai Weiwei tried to comprehend our perception about the number, individual value, and our engagement with society. It was attributed to being a spectacular commission in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall exhibited over the past decade.

Ai Weiwei has always been creating appreciable social sculptures employing diverse media, vibrant techniques, immense skill, humor, and wit. Most of them are a representation of contemporary Chinese society. The Sunflower Seeds installation represents a glimpse of the relationship between an individual and society.

Ai Weiwei usually presents a poetic yet provocative statement that audaciously and intelligently subverts the tradition encouraging the reform. Like his other works, Sunflower Seeds reflected matters concerning the society, economy, and politics in China. It reflects mass production and globalization in China and the growth of western consumerism. It represents thousands of low-priced laborers constituting the bottom of the production process.

It represents the tedious procedures, thousands of working hours, and numerous assembly lines installed in gigantic factories. Absurdly, the Sunflower Seeds installation provides an ironic reflection of the modern social reality of China. When the world witnessed the expansion of China as an industrialized nation supplying a myriad of domestic goods to the entire world, the Sunflower Seed installation restored Chinas identity as the prime manufacturer of prized ceramic products. Many of these prized products have created a culture of consumerism in various other nations.

The Chinese population has become a workforce mechanically producing goods for a commercial global market. Furthermore, the mass production of goods ranges from clothes to electronics. Since its first appearance in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall, the Sunflower Seeds installation has appeared in other exhibitions in ever-changing forms. The Sunflower Seeds exhibit at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall was most significant in terms of weight and amount in the year , where million porcelain seeds weighing over tons covered a stretch of 1,square-metre to a layer depth of 10cm.

The work literally amalgamated an epic sense of magnificence with exquisite craftsmanship. Ai Weiwei appointed over 1, artisans in Jingdezhen for two and a half years to create his huge pile of ceramic seeds. The sunflower husks were manufactured from the kaolin extracted from the local mountains.

The creation of every unique seed followed a conspicuous step procedure of molding, crafting, and hand-painting. The seeds were forged under 1, degrees. The production has been attributed to be the most costly artwork in Chinese and Western culture. The sunflower seeds are a common Chinese street snack closely related to the life of the artist.