Weiwei Still Getting Whacked

Back in November I did post here about the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in which I urged readers to make origami birds out of money and toss them over the wall of his house in Beijing to help him pay for the privilege of contesting a "tax evasion" penalty of 15 million yuan ($2.4 million). While I doubt I have any readership in China, it did feel good to support, in some small way, a protest against tyranny and injustice.

And Weiwei did manage to collect the equivalent of $1.3 million from 30,000 supporters, without which, it has been said, his wife would have been jailed.

Last week The Authorities denied a request by Beijing Fake Cultural Development Ltd. (Weiwei's company, registered in his wife's name) for a public trial to contest the penalty, instead offering him a written hearing — whatever that is.

While Weiwei gets lots of exposure in the rest of the world — a new film by freelance journalist Alison Klayman "Ai Weiwei, Never Sorry" will open in New York this summer — in China, I fear, mostly everything on the internet by or about him gets scrubbed clean.

If you click on his website Fake, you get an image of a fly. Click on "Works" and you get three images of mostly noncontroversial, non-subversive works of his. Click on "Editorial" and you get — nothing. Indeed, there is nothing here. He is being eviscerated, wiped off the record in China.

I tried entering the Chinese characters of his name — maybe I made a mistake, but I don't think so — again, nothing. His blog, which was shut down in 2009 by guess who?, can only still be accessed in book form, available from MIT Press: Writing, Interviews, and Digital Rants 2006-2009.

At least we have that.
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Update 2/19/2016: I don't know if the situation for Weiwei in China has changed, but here in the U.S., the website Artsy has a dedicated Ai Weiwei page which includes his bio, pictures of over 120 of his works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date exhibition listings. 


You may also want to follow Ai Weiwei on Instagram @aiww where he has been chronicling the plight of refugees coming into Greece by boat.

Ai Weiwei's Waiting For You

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was released from jail in June but has recently been slapped with a $2.4 million "tax" bill which he must pay within two weeks or risk further harassment and/or imprisonment from the government.

According to a report in the New York Times, he had begun receiving small donations from people over the internet to pay the bill until Big Brother shut that down:

"The donations began pouring in on Thursday, many of them delivered  electronically and accompanied by politically tinged comments. “You helped them to design the Bird’s Nest, but they sent you into a bird cage,” said one donor, referring to Mr. Ai’s role in designing the Olympic stadium in Beijing. “You charged them fees, but now they fine you more than hundreds of times that in blood and sweat.'"

Most recently people have begun walking past his property in Beijing and floating paper Maos over the wall into his garden.

How To Make Flying Money:

First, tape a couple of high denomination Yuan together, then follow the instructions above.

Ai Weiwei will be waiting for you.

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Update 2/19/2016: I don't know if the situation for Weiwei in China has changed, but here in the U.S., the website Artsy has a dedicated Ai Weiwei page which includes his bio, pictures of over 120 of his works, exclusive articles, and up-to-date exhibition listings. 

You may also want to follow Ai Weiwei on Instagram @aiww where he has been chronicling the plight of refugees coming into Greece by boat.