Last year the art gallery on campus hosted a world famous contemporary artist named Ai Weiwei, in the exhibition "Ai Weiwei: Dropping the Urn 5000 BCE-2010 CE". His work consisted mainly of handcrafted ceramics, playing with the idea of what we put value upon in our society, and how an "artifact" is merely something that was once commonplace in ancient times. Being a gallery assistant I helped install many of the pieces for the show, along with the rest of the Arcadia staff at the gallery. The interesting aspect of this show was that after it was featured in the gallery on campus, his pieces were sent over to the Tate Modern museum of Art in London. Reccently I got to experience this new exhibition. I found it interesting that his work was installed completely differently in the Tate from how it was installed at my school, yet in both spaces the idea of scale plays a huge role in how the viewer sees the piece. At the Tate, his sunflower seeds were spread out over the floor of a vast warehouse-like space, while at my school's more intimate gallery his sunflower seeds were installed in a large pile of about 10 feet in diameter. The way people approached the piece also varied between the two spaces. At the gallery on my campus people were very audacious, some even handleing the work itself. At the Tate people were found to be more reserved, just carefully looking at the piece from a distance. Both spaces were successful in illustrating Ai Weiwei's ideas, and though different in installation, his pieces translated the same message to the viewer.
by JP
