Weiwei’s “TRACE”

I remember watching the Olympics in Beijing, and hearing them refer to the “bird’s nest” stadium. It really did look kind of a like a bird’s nest, designed by an artist named Ai Weiwei.

I wanted to write about the experience we had today seeing some of Ai’s artwork.

But first, here’s what little I know about him:
Weiwei is a native of China, born to dissident parents. When the internet came to China, it was tightly controlled by the government (and still is), but Weiwei discovered that he could blog, and that his words were getting out to other countries. Realizing that his voice could be public, he proceeded to write over 2.5 million words, a one-man revolution,  before his blog was shut down.

I don’t usually blog about things that aren’t personal to me, but I wanted to support HIS effort to reach people by blogging.

So, what’s TRACE about?

After spending time in prison for his “crimes”, he was invited to create an art exhibit in America, and even though he was still stuck in China, he decided to bring art into the prison at Alcatraz, and designed an art exhibit for it. After hearing that nails or screws were not allowed in the prison (to hang the artwork) he got the idea to do something on the floor, and decided to use LEGOs to create portraits.

…over a MILLION of them !

Here’s a more official statement of the work:

Trace portrays individuals from around the world whom the artist and various human rights groups consider to be activists, prisoners of conscience, and advocates of free speech.

Each of these 176 portraits comprises thousands of plastic LEGO® bricks, assembled by hand and laid out on the floor.

The work foregrounds Ai Weiwei’s own experiences of incarceration, interrogation, and surveillance. In 2011, he was detained by the Chinese government for eighty-one days and then prohibited from traveling abroad until 2015.

So, here’s where WE enter the picture – We were visiting Chicago for a few days to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary (love you, Cyndi!) and my friend Mary Gay McKinney (love you, too!) mentioned that the Trace exhibit was being shown here.
When we checked into it we learned that it was opening TODAY. What luck!
So, we went.
(In fact, due to my paranoia about being late and not knowing how long it would take to get a taxi, we ended up being there early and were the first two visitors in the door!)

Cyndi took a picture of me in front of a large photograph of the original TRACE exhibit inside Alcatraz prison:

Over a hundred of the portraits are being shown in a stunningly beautiful new gallery space in Lincoln Park called Alphawood at 659 W. Wrightwood in Chicago.

Here’s a picture showing two of the floor pieces:

The new exhibit also provides digital access on every floor to learn more about each of the people in the portraits, but we only had two hours to visit.

Here’s a link where you can get tickets if you are interested:

About the show

We had a wonderful experience;

• everyone was friendly,
• the gallery space is beautiful
• the artwork is meaningful.

I’m grateful we could be there for it, and I’m honored to promote it.

Thanks, Mary Gay!