Page 22 - AI WEIWEI CAHIERS D ART

“WE CAN REPLACE
ANYTHING
EXCEPT FOR THE PAST”
AI WEIWEI, CONVERSATION WITH HANS ULRICH OBRIST BERLIN, NOVEMBER 24, 2018
hans ulrich obrist — Your last show, presented in Brazil under the title Raiz (Roots), was the largest presentation of your work ever staged. Why was this show so important?
ai weiwei — This exhibition covered a total area of 8,000 square meters at the Oca exhibition space in Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo. I was showing seventy works of art in one of the largest exhibition spaces in the world. It was my biggest show ever.
The Oca building, designed in 1951 by Oscar Niemeyer and renovated by Paulo Mendes da Rocha and MMBB Arquitetos in 2000, is really amazing.
Yes, the building itself is the most important. It is a masterpiece of modern architecture.
Tell me about the works that you are showing in Brazil.
I am showing many works that have never had the chance to be fully exhibited. Often, these works would be exhibited partially, because they require a very large space to be shown in their entirety. Straight, for example, which is composed of 150 tons of steel rebar recovered from the sites of the collapsed schools in Sichuan following the 2008 earthquake. The size of the work is so large and heavy, and it is the first time that I can show the complete version. That work has also never been shown together with Sunflower Seeds because it also requires a huge space. This location made it possible.
You also created a lot of new works arising from a deep immersion in Brazil and its resources and traditions.
Yes. The most important project we did was the casting of a huge tree. This tree stands in the forest reserve of Trancoso, Bahia. It is thirty-one meters high. We built scaffolding around the tree and then molded each part of it. It was an extremely difficult task requiring a lot of patience.
Why did you choose this special tree?
Because this tree is 1,200 years old. It is very, very old and beautiful. It is prohibited to make a cast of a living tree, so we had to ask for permissions from the highest levels and we obtained the authorization to do it. We had a few dozen people working on the site for several months, molding this huge tree. We made hundreds, thousands of molds. The total production area is up to 428 square meters. The molds filled three containers and were shipped to China for casting.
It’s very interesting, because this Cahiers d’Art issue is about your link to the past, to archaeology, to heritage and this Trancoso project with the tree also has a lot to do with the past. You chose a very old tree, and your work sounds like a portrait of a thousand years, or something immemorial. The past is your subject once again.
Yes, but this tree is only 1,200 years old. It is not a very distant past. In 1,200 years, you could do at least 1,000 interviews. But this is all relative.
Yeah, that’s true. Will these molds be cast in bronze or iron?
In iron. I like iron. Bronze is very much a traditional material. I like it when iron rusts. It is more natural. I have put a little Buddha statue, one that is 300 years older than the Brazilian tree, inside a hole in the trunk.
This tree project is very interesting because you’ve worked a lot on the refugee question and that, of course, has a lot to do with roots.
My father wrote a poem about trees, in 1940:
“One tree, another tree
Each standing alone and erect. The wind and air
Tell their distance apart.
But beneath the cover of earth Their roots reach out
And at depths that cannot be seen The roots of the trees intertwine.”
You can compare individuals with trees. We can learn from our understanding of the forest. All manner of plants and trees are sharing the same earth. In the same way human beings are sharing humanity. Basically, we are all the same. Refugees, whatever you may call them, are human beings.
Humanity is one, as you say?
Yes, we are all the same. The human condition is one even if living conditions are very different.
Beautiful! When did you start to work with the roots and the trees? When did that begin?
I have a very short memory. Sometimes it is only through somebody else saying, “You did that earlier,” that I remember! We did a large installation with roots, for the Haus der Kunst in Munich in 2009. At that
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