Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

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Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry 
Directed by: Alison Klayman
2012




In a century in which all art claims to be ‘political’, i.e. providing a certain critique of the time and society we live in, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry reformulates the question in dramatic, yet ambiguous terms.


Conceived as the portrait of one of the most controversial and outspoken artists in modern China, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry traces the ascent to fame and dissent of Ai Weiwei. While gaining access to the artist’s private life, the documentary records along the way his major artistic achievements abroad and most daring critiques of the Regime at home. Digging in Weiwei’s past and family, as well as capturing on camera the most recent events (the documentary closes on the artist’s current house arrest) the film really feels like the work of a director who had the chance to not only record on the spot over the years, but who also grew close to the subject.

Director Alison Klayman found for her documentary a tone which is intimate, without being voyeuristic; engaged, without being propagandistic; respectful, without being obsequious. The documentary has thus been presented as the ‘perfect portrait’ of Ai Weiwei. Yet, what the documentary shows, I believe, is that it is impossible to squarely define who Ai Weiwei is. And that is what matters. Is he a post-modern, post-NewYork artist? Or a disguised activist? A famous blogger? A Tate-blockbuster name? Or a tweet addict?

On a purely theoretical point – and one which may be relevant only to art historians – there is the question of the relationship between art and politics. Are Wei’s actions art or political resistance? There is no doubt that Weiwei’s show So Sorry in Munich, centred on the tragedy of the Sichuan earthquake, was perceived as art. An art political enough to please the highbrow art elite, but approached in the secure white-washed frame of the museum. It is another story, however, to see Weiwei documenting the tragedy in China with a camera, defying the local authorities to declare the number of children who perished because of the lack of secure public infrastructure. The two poles gain strength off each other. It is because it is political that Weiwei’s art attracts the attention of the West; it is because they are art that Weiwei’s actions can survive – to a certain extent – in China.

But if the debate art/politics, and artist vs. activist remains open to discussion, another point is forcefully made by the documentary: whatever art or politics, or whoever artist or activist, Weiwei’s work rests its force and impact on the power of the digital era. Blogging, Twitter, video cameras, e-mails outreaching to a mass audience seem to be Weiwei’s real weapons. More than as an artist, Weiwei should be praised for having understood the subversive power of the Internet under authoritarian regimes. A great shot on this regard is when we see, in a sort of pixels duel, one of Weiwei’s collaborators filming from behind a police officer filming Weiwei.

What Weiwei did was to tune artists’ need to speak for the rest of us to the viral digital speed of Internet. Among all the questions that Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry successfully raises and leaves with no certain answer, emerges the figure of someone who – for the better or for the worst – refuses to be silenced.


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