{"id":8619,"date":"2011-05-01T04:05:18","date_gmt":"2011-05-01T04:05:18","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-01T04:05:18","modified_gmt":"2011-05-01T04:05:18","slug":"A-Message-of-Tolerance-Unrepressed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asiancemagazine.com\/?p=8619","title":{"rendered":"A Message of Tolerance, Unrepressed"},"content":{"rendered":"

An outspoken artist angers rulers with his savage, satirical wit. A crusader for political freedom and social justice, he lives in fear of arrest. Beaten and jailed, he becomes famous far beyond the borders of his land. That was Voltaire, the hero of Europe\u2019s 18th-century Enlightenment. It is also Ai Weiwei, one of China\u2019s best-known artists, seized by the police at the Beijing international airport on April 3, two days after a major German exhibition about the Enlightenment, Europe\u2019s flowering of reason, science and tolerance, opened in the heart of the capital in the National Museum of China on Tiananmen Square.<\/strong> <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is certainly a parallel,\u201d said Bao Pu, the Hong Kong-based political commentator and publisher of New Century Press. His father, Bao Tong, a former aide to the liberal Communist Party leader Zhao Ziyang, was jailed for seven years after the crushing of the 1989 democracy movement. Like Voltaire\u2019s, Mr. Ai\u2019s work points toward change, Mr. Bao said. \u201cArt is at the forefront of social change,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the end, it is part of a larger social context.\u201d Just as Voltaire\u2019s plays and essays angered the ancien r\u00e9gime of France, Mr. Ai\u2019s provocative art angers China\u2019s leadership and, unable to control its message, the government is trying to silence the artist, Mr. Bao said. Yet, he added, \u201cOnce you decide to arrest an artist, then people are wondering, \u2018Who\u2019s next? A cook?\u201d\u2019 <\/p>\n

Mr. Ai is not the only artist to have disappeared recently. Cheng Li was sentenced to two years of \u201cre-education through labor\u201d after being detained on March 24 in the Beijing arts village of Songzhuang, said Wei Rujiu, a lawyer involved in the case. Three other artists detained with Mr. Cheng were released on Sunday, he said. The detentions were related to an art show, \u201cSensitive Times,\u201d with Mr. Cheng\u2019s piece showing a couple simulating sexual intercourse, to express his sense that art has been \u201csold out,\u201d and \u201canyone can do it,\u201d Mr. Wei said. Mr. Cheng was sentenced for violating public morals, but within the context of a politically charged show, \u201cI believe it is a warning to the art world not to go too far,\u201d Mr. Wei said.<\/strong><\/p>\n

SOURCE<\/a>
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