Bare Life —Ai Weiwei at the Kemper Museum

Step into the Kemper Art Museum any time between now and January 5th and you’ll step into Ai Weiwei’s world. After extensive construction and expansion of both the art museum and Washington University’s entire East End, the Kemper has reopened. Two of its newly built galleries are now devoted to Bare Life, an exhibition of over 35 pieces of Ai Weiwei’s work. This is Weiwei’s first major exhibit in the Midwest, and his first in an academic institution. The exhibition covers two sections, Bare Life and Rupture, which work in tandem to reflect on Weiwei’s work in China and the world to create art that calls to humanity.

Ai Weiwei’s most recent piece, Bombs, was created specifically to be shown in the Kemper. The visual catalogue of bombs, built from 1911 to 2019, reaches from the floor to the atrium’s curved ceiling. Each bomb is accompanied by its name, the year it was built, and its country of origin, eerily recalling the descriptions on art pieces themselves. They range in size from moderate to immense, with the largest bombs hanging over the heads of observers—but as you get closer, even the smaller bombs are as tall as a person. Weiwei conducted two years of research to complete this piece, which arches over the entrance to Bare Life.

Ai Weiwei is well known for his work on the global refugee crisis, in his artwork and beyond. In 2017, Weiwei premiered the documentary Human Flow, which follows groups of refugees around the world to show how both universal and profoundly personal this crisis is. Weiwei revisits themes of universality in Bare Life, a gallery devoted to his responses to migration and humanitarian crises. Arching across and bisecting the gallery is Forever Bicycles, a monumental sculpture composed of 720 Forever brand bicycles, a brand popular in China. The sculpture divides the gallery thematically, between works that reflect on the refugee crisis and works that reflect on humanitarian crises, specifically the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

These works include Rebar and Case, a memorial piece composed of eight wooden cases that recall coffins, some topped with marble carved to resemble the twisted rebar Weiwei saw in the rubble following the earthquake. One wall of the gallery is devoted to Letters From Government Officials in Response to Ai Weiwei Studio’s Inquiries regarding the Sichuan Earthquake, a wall of letters denying or avoiding requests for information on the names and numbers of those killed in the natural disaster. The other two walls of the exhibition are dedicated to the wallpapers Finger and Odyssey, illustrated pieces that both inform and react to Weiwei’s concerns regarding humanitarian crises.

Across the hall from Bare Life is Rupture, a gallery focused on Weiwei’s relationship to China and the Chinese government’s relationship to national history and art. The gallery is overtaken by Through, a piece constructed from wooden beams, tables, and pillars from dismantled Qing Dynasty temples that Weiwei obtained at antiques sales. The piece is constructed entirely using Qing Dynasty building techniques, without glue, screws, or nails. Along the sides of the gallery are pieces that further reflect on the Chinese government’s devaluing of art and history. The 2012 piece Souvenir from Shanghai is composed of rubble from Ai Weiwei’s demolished Shanghai studio. On one wall, the wallpaper Provisional Landscapes shows 128 photographs of rapid construction and demolition all across China. The gallery also includes Weiwei’s infamous triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, the original three photographs recreated in Legos, adding to the tension between modernity and history that Weiwei sees in China.

Bare Life is meant to be experienced holistically, every piece informing the environment and the pieces around it. Walking through the exhibition is overwhelming, with beams, bicycles, and bombs hanging overhead, with countless reminders of tragedy and cruelty in the work. And walking through the exhibition is wildly joyful, experiencing the beauty and the irreverence of Weiwei’s work. We both see the horrors of the world and feel that something can, and must, be done about it. There is action in Weiwei’s work, not stagnation. Even in pieces created from ancient structures, his work calls always to the future.

In a press Q&A session, Weiwei was asked if he thought it was possible to achieve justice through art. He responded, “It’s hard, so you have to try. And it’s impossible, so you have to keep trying.”