Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry

A Social-Networking Trickster
What a fascinating story! Ai Weiwei is the Chinese Artist/Dissident who boycotted the 2008 Chinese Olympics as a protest against the government's treatment of the people displaced by the Bird's-Nest Stadium in Beijing (he had been an artist/consultant for the project). After people's homes were condemned and demolished, they were hustled out of town for the duration of the Olympics because they weren't acceptable photo ops for visitors.

As he mastered the power of social network tools (he LOVES the Internet!), the government shut down his blog but he switched to Twitter and went to the site of the horrific Sichuan earthquake, where almost 5,000 school children died in shoddily built schools. Weiwei and his acolytes were on the spot, video cameras and cell phones in constant use. They gathered every name (most victims were an only child) and not only posted them on the wall in his studio, he coordinated an amazing project where people from everywhere contacted his Twitter...

The Breadth of Art: Ai Wei Wei's Never Sorry
The Ai Wei Wei movie, Never Sorry, is eyeopening for those who care about Art. After viewing it, I knew I would be thinking about it for a long time. Ai Wei Wei is a man of enormous energy and charisma and charm mixed with real intelligence, whose art is more than pictures or color or shape, but includes action and response and challenge. And, a call to action. To watch him respond to the mindless bureaucratic enforcement of a police state is dazzling and comic and moving. The intelligence of his response is eye-opening and just amazing. And, the Sunflower Seeds exhibit at the Tate were revealed to be an emotionally moving work of art.
I long to find a dvd, which I assume must vecome available because I want everyone I know to see it. Never Sorry captured me. Not only is AWW a rare individual, he raises issues of cultural history, activism, politics, and really, the breadth of Art. I was struck by thinking, despite his family history, Chinese politics and our reaction...

Good Access, but the Final Product Is Unfocused and Not Especially Informative.
"Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" explores the recent life and politics of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who came to international fame in 2008 when he repudiated the Olympic Games in Beijing, even though he had contributed to the architectural design of its "Bird's Nest" stadium. Filmmaker Alison Klayman focuses on the years since then, as this is when Ai entered the public consciousness, though she does explore the artist's background in interviews with his brother and mother and a report on the time he spent in New York in the 1980s. Ai's recent political causes are interwoven with explorations of his art and a personal portrait. Klayman had very good access to Ai Weiwei, and he generally seems forthcoming, but the film's lack of focus and unwillingness to ask intelligent questions make it more of a fan documentary than an informative one.

Ai Weiwei came to the attention of Chinese as a political figure not long before he erupted onto the international scene as a "dissident artist",...

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