ART
THE POWER OF VISION
Over the last few years, Dulwich boys have been visiting galleries and looking at the work of professional artists to learn and find inspiration. As a way of recording their thoughts and impressions, we print here reviews of recent shows by three of the College’s young artists. First, Toby Stinson (Year 12) shares his enthusiasm for the work of the celebrated Chinese artist Ai Weiwei A i Weiwei’s work has caused intense controversy in his home country and has received critical acclaim worldwide. He uses his art primarily to
in an undulating landscape that seems to flow despite the immense weight of the material. These rods occupied the entire gallery floor, giving a sense of grandeur unparalleled in the other works there. The simplicity of the installation created a peacefulness that, when juxtaposed with the latent brutality of the context, gave the entire piece an ominous air. It struck me how the air of serenity created by Straight made it seem almost ecclesiastical. However, the contrast of the horrific subtext of the piece made this quietude all the more powerful. The makeup of the central form itself is also conflicting. The fluidity of the rods is at once graceful, like the gentle movement of a wave, yet at the same time, inescapably reminiscent of a landscape moving during an earthquake. This feeling was further enhanced by the jagged edges of the shorter rods, which still followed the flowing pattern, but incorporated a jarring sense of violence and destruction. As there was nothing separating you from the work, you were able to see the fragility of the rods, which appear so thin when compared to the cumulative mass of the piece. You see clearly how many girders there are, drawing a sombre parallel with the number of children killed by them. The themes presented in Straight are reflected and developed in one of Ai’s most harrowing works: S.A.C.R.E.D .
highlight China’s lack of free speech and its governmental corruption; however, he also exposes the destruction and commercialisation of Chinese history in the wake of its economic development. When I visited an exhibition of his work at the Royal Academy, within the multitude of what the gallery rightly labelled as ‘brave, provocative and visionary works’ was one piece that made everyone in the gallery stop. Straight is a work that epitomises the power art has to influence our thoughts and comment on our society. Straight was created as a response to the devastation caused by an earthquake in the Sichuan province, which killed more than 5,000 school children. The work reveals how government corruption led to poor-quality building materials being used, resulting in school buildings collapsing too easily and crushing their victims. This installation consists solely of the names of the school children who were victims of the earthquake and the hundreds of cheap steel rods that killed them. The 150 tons of steel have been straightened and arranged, stacked together
91
Made with FlippingBook Online document