Mary-Anne Toy interviewed well-known artist Ai Weiwei, who was also a co-designer of the Olympic stadium – the bird-nest. Ai has left the project and says that “it is part of a pretend smile of bad taste.” In early January 2008, Ai Weiwei wrote a post on his blog on Sina.com saying that China today has become a country where the poor are getting poorer and the air and rivers are getting dirtier. Ai also leaves some negative comments on Beijing Olympic Games, from The Age:
…In an interview last year with The Guardian, he attacked Chinese film director Zhang Yimou, Hollywood’s Steven Spielberg and others over their work on the opening ceremony, calling them “shitty directors” prostituting themselves to promote China’s one-party dictatorship by agreeing to work for the Chinese Government. “It’s disgusting. I don’t like anyone who shamelessly abuses their profession, who makes no moral judgement. It is mindless,” Ai told The Guardian. In his first blog for this year, Ai unleashed another lament about the state of affairs in his homeland, lampooning the Olympic slogans “We are Ready” and “One World, One Dream”.
“2007 was year of strenuously defending rights … with both growth and collapses. People got used to desperation and disillusionment, the incompetence of the regime and being told habitual lies,” it says….[Full Text]
[Image of Ai Weiwei via The Age]
