For Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, “Cubans deserve a better life and a better government”

“I believe that Cubans deserve a better life and a better government”, Ai Weiwei sentenced. The Chinese artist, still committed to human rights, reappeared on Thursday in the Portuguese city of Harbor with a new reason to fight, climate change, without neglecting politics.

“I hope this will lead to better and more democratic progress”he told the agency EFE on the demonstrations in Cuba the Chinese artist, who presents at the museum Serralves from Porto new parts signal the risks of climate change and its impact, particularly in the Brazilian Amazon.

“Ai Weiwei: Interlacing, Pequi Vinagreiro, Roots, Human Figures” is the title of an exhibition that takes place both inside the museum and in its gardens, where The most impressive works are on display, such as a 32-meter tree that recreates a specimen of the Pequi variety, native to Brazil and in danger of extinction.

A work shows a dry chest which was divided into segments and transported to China to be soldiers, a piece which took three years to make.

“He’s 99% dead,” Weiwei explains of the tree, which shows the consequences of not stopping climate change, whose devastating effects were seen during the recent floods in Germany.

The artist believes, however, that the threat it is not yet obvious to everyone.

“I think more (natural disasters) will come. I can see more drastic climate changes, temperatures have risen dramatically and the result will be more floods, more droughts, more hunger and new problems “because of a larger gap between the rich and the poor. poor, supports the artist, to the sentence: “Then the future will not be stable.”

According to him, “we have gradually lost the balance between man and the environment”. “I see dramatic climate change, I see humans exploiting nature for unnecessary purposes”, He comments, before stressing that “by hurting nature, the human being hurts himself because he is part of nature”.

Weiwei’s thoughts come after an investigation in Brazil that led him to explore his biodiversity and alert to concerns about the future, aspects addressed in the work presented in Serralves, in which it also hosts the exchange of cultures Yet the sexuality.

The imminence of disaster runs through the exhibition, produced with the support of the Spanish La Caixa Foundation and where the works monopolize the same number of lightning bolts as Weiwei when the hood of the sweatshirt is lowered or the face is covered with a fern.

Among the photographic games of the artist, who resides in the Portuguese region of Alentejo, the works finally make their appearance, such as “Domain», Which shows several felled tree trunks, also of the variety Beijing (originally from the state of Bahia), and reveals what sinks into the ground.

Not only is the nature of Brazil the object of Weiwei’s study, so is the “latent sexuality in Brazilian culture“, According to the museum.

This is the case of “Two digits», A work in which the mold of a Brazilian model lying next to another mold is represented on a mattress. this from the artist himself.

You can also see the photograph “Mutuofagia”, in which the artist appears naked against a background of tropical fruits such as expression of “the pain and the pleasure of taking a bite of the culture of others and offering a bite of one’s own culture”.

The Serralves show takes place just a month after Weiwei’s presentation at Lisbon an ambitious retrospective, which should not be a competition, according to Rafael Chueca, general director of the Fundación La Caixa, therefore highlights EFE, in cultural matters “You don’t compete, you add up.”

Weiwei’s works on display inside the museum can be seen until February 5, while the pieces outside will remain so until February 5. July 9, 2022.

(By Cynthia de Benito – EFE)

Read on: