Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron at the 2012 Serpentine pavilion

Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron's pavilion opens

Architects talk about creating a structure over Skype and why 'everybody loves cork' at London launch

The first thing one notices on the approach to Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron’s Serpentine Pavilion, unveiled last night, is the overwhelming smell of cork. The entire seating area of the structure is given over to the stuff and it makes for a very unusual visual and olfactory experience.

Despite this year’s pavilion being rooted in the idea of memory – it references previous pavilion designs by Zaha Hadid, Toyo Ito and Cecil Balmond, Oscar Niemeyer, and Frank Gehry - there are no apparent ruins in evidence beneath it. Instead the collaborators have overlain plans of earlier pavilions on the cork floor and raised elements of these plans up from it. Zaha Hadid’s first Pavilion plan from 2000 is at the bottom.

The 2012 Serpentine pavilion by Ai Weiwei and Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron

“So many pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built,” Jacques Herzog, said at the opening. “that we tried instinctively to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating an object, a concrete shape.”

Herzog said he was pleased with the result given they only had a few weeks to get it up. "Sometimes small works require as much energy on the part of the designers and creators as large works and for us it has always been very important that we work on different scales."

The pair communicated with Ai Weiwei, not present at last night's opening due to the Chinese authorities refusal to allow him to travel, by Skype during the creative process. "Working via Skype is not ideal but because we have such a friendship we can do it and it felt good," Herzog said.

The circular structure features two levels, a steel roof with a shallow layer of water to reflect the sky and the pattern of former pavilions at the site. "It's nice that we can reflect the sky of London, which is so lively!" Herzog said. And why so much cork we asked? “It smells good. It’s soft, everybody loves cork. And it adds to the idea of past,” he replied.

Ai Weiwei : Survey by Karen Smith, Interview by Hans Ulrich Obrist, Focus by Bernard Fibicher

Price AUD$55.00 Price CAD$59.95 Price €39.95 Price £27.95 Price T45.00 Price USD$45.00

Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is truly an artist for the twenty-first century. In his sculptures he refashions artefacts and antiques into surprising, sometimes monumental constructions such as Template (2007): hundreds of wooden doors and windows taken from demolished Ming and Qing dynasty temples and arranged into a massive outdoor sculpture. As much as these materials look to the past, they also speak of the present, because never before (and probably never again) have they been available in such abundance. Like his benches carved from centuries-old temple beams, Template is a sly commentary on the speed with which China's building boom is obliterating its past. (When Template collapsed in a rainstorm two weeks after its unveiling at Documenta 12, the artist embraced its demise as a clever artistic twist.)

In China today, making art that's critical of current cultural and economic policies is not a particularly safe career move. But Ai's father, the poet Ai Qing, walked a similar path, absorbing European avant-garde styles while studying in 1930s Paris and later standing by them in the face of Communist opposition, a move that eventually led to his exile to the distant provincial town where his son Weiwei came to be born and raised. In the late 1970s Ai Weiwei moved to Beijing, banding together with other pro-democracy artists in a loose collective known as the Stars Group. In 1981, following government retaliation against one of their exhibitions, Ai moved to New York, where he attended art school and lived the life of the bohemian for twelve years, his East Village apartment serving as a base for countless visiting Chinese artists. When his father became ill in 1993 Ai returned to China, settling in Beijing and finally taking up his art career in earnest.

Weiwei's artistic forebears belong primarily to the Western modernist avant-garde (Duchamp and Beuys are particularly relevant). But Ai has equally and increasingly been influenced by modernist architecture and contemporary urban planning, citing the need for an ideal for living in a country where runaway economic development has shown little regard for the everyday life of the individual. In stark contrast to the glass-and-steel high-rises going up around Beijing, the art galleries, ateliers and homes Ai designs are boxy and modest, made from brick and other vernacular materials. Their resolution of Eastern and Western styles is a fitting parallel to his antique readymade sculptures.

At a time when the West is finally discovering Chinese contemporary art, Ai is one of the few to have transcended the label 'Chinese artist'. In part thanks to his gallery Urs Meile (Lucerne and Beijing), Ai has won the support of strong European collectors. His work is increasingly being shown at major venues around the world (Kunsthalle Bern, Kunsthaus Graz, Tate Liverpool) and included in major international exhibitions (the Moscow Biennial, the Guangzhou Triennale, Documenta). A complex, multi-faceted artist, Ai is poised to make a deep impact on contemporary art far beyond China's borders.

In the interview Hans Ulrich Obrist discusses Ai Weiwei’s life and motivations, his childhood in a rural province close to the Russian border, his underground political work, his move to New York in the 80s and consequent return to China in the 90s, and his break within the art world.

Karen Smith’s survey examines the evolution of Ai Weiwei’s work from the early paintings, drawings, and sculptures pieces through his most recent installations and architectural work, including the cotton-made sculpture World Map (Biennale of Sydney, 2006), the wooden doors and windows structure Template (Documenta 12, 2007) and his collaboration with the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Bernard Fibicher focuses on Working Progress (Fountain of Light) (2007), a site-specific sculpture for Tate Liverpool inspired by Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (1919) and that takes the form of a spectacular chandelier.

Specifications:

Format: Paperback
Size: 290 × 250 mm (11 3/8 × 9 7/8 in)
Pages: 160 pp
Illustrations: 200 illustrations
ISBN: 9780714848891

Karen Smith is a curator and writer based in Beijing.

Hans Ulrich Obrist is Co-Director of Exhibitions and Programmes and Director of International Projects at the Serpentine Gallery, London.

Bernard Fibicher is Director of the Musée Cantonal des Beaux Art in Lausanne.

On the Contemporary Artists Series

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