Ai Weiwei Lausanne Switzerland

Ai Weiwei, Lausanne, Switzerland

It's always the others

I would love to meet the curator of the Ai Weiwei exhibition at the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne as this person must have an imagination as active and varied as the artist himself. I advise you to be well rested when you make this visit as your brain is going to be working hard (in a good way) finding the Ai Weiwei works and then figuring out the many layers of messages within each one. I also recommend that you do your visit in the reverse order of the guide so that all your hunting and seeking is done by the time you reach the airy interiors of the Musée des Beaux-Arts within the Palais.

For those who do not know the Palais, it houses several small museums and many of the exhibition’s works are cleverly placed, or in some cases hidden, amongst the permanent exhibits. This adds some real whimsy and fun to the exhibition and results in some witty juxtapositions. A huge intricately made bamboo and silk kite dragon in brown and cream is suspended over antique display cases full of stuffed birds and woodland animals seemingly ready to swoop down and snatch one of them. A set of delicate skeletal wings hangs high above cabinets full of fossilized leaves as if flying in a prehistoric land. A jade I-phone cut-out is placed amongst primitive blunt looking Stone Age implements as a reminder of how far or not we have evolved.

However, do not be fooled by all this whimsy and humour as everything is political with Ai Weiwei. Those plain jade models of everyday objects which look so plain in the Musée Cantonal de Géologie next to glittering rock samples are, in fact, an allusion to jade’s symbol as the absolute power of the Emperor and jade’s association with traditional Chinese culture and wealth. By creating everyday objects in such a prized material Ai Weiwei is trivializing a “noble” material.

Some of the works are more obviously political such as the beautiful blue and white porcelain plates in the Musée Cantonal d’archéologie which illustrate the cruel and hard story of modern day refugees. One of the plates has a recreation of the heart-wrenching photo of the now infamous drowned 3-year old boy face down in the sand. Likewise, the piece entitled “Remains”, which at first sight seems to be a carefully arranged collection of human bones placed in a recreation of an archaeological dig. In fact they are porcelain reproductions of bones removed from a work camp where counter-revolutionaries such as Ai Weiwei’s poet father were exiled during Mao’s dictatorship - a testimony to the disastrous consequences of Mao’s Great Leap Forward Campaign and the immense loss of life. If you remember the photos of Ai Weiwei deliberately dropping a 2000 year old urn in order to shatter it in tiny little pieces those famous photos are represented here but, in another Ai Weiwei genius interpretation, they are reproduced in a giant triptych using “pixels” of tiny Lego bricks.

“Sunflower Seeds” is possibly Ai Weiwei’s most well-known work - an installation he mounted in the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern composed of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds all individually painted and unique just like human beings. The good news is that a few thousand of the seeds are laid out here in a neat rectangular shape on the floor of the Beaux Arts Musée. The temptation to roll about in them or just touch them is quite compelling. This became an issue at the Tate as it created clouds of dust and also people starting taking them home. A barrier here prevents either of those eventualities. The floor of a neighbouring room is covered in the most gorgeous carpet of exquisite and plentiful white ceramic flowers. This abundance of flowers manages to be monochromatically harsh and sensually luxuriant at the same time.

This article only touches on some personal highlights of the exhibition which contains so much more such as a touchingly rendered death mask of the artist’s father or a fabulously colourful and huge kite dragon in rainbow colours and decorated with slogans from political activists or a video of the construction and then mandated destruction of the artist’s studio in Shanghai. I also loved the extravagant wallpaper in the Musée des Beaux-Arts covered in images of censorship such as the Twitter logo surrounded in chains and multiple security cameras all rendered in opulent gold.

Certainly not every piece is shown in the optimal way - the delicate hanging creations in the Musée de Géologie are slightly lost in the cream background of the rooms, however, that is only a small negative in a wonderfully stimulating and thoughtful exhibition. Ai Weiwei is an artist with so much to say to us and truly an artist for our time.

Helen Higgins, 12 October 2017

Further information

Ai Weiwei - D’ailleurs c’est toujours les autres
Palais de Rumine, Lausanne
22 September - 28 January
Admission Free

Tues, Weds, Fri: 11h-18h
Thurs: 11h-20h
Sat-Sun: 11h-17h