I found the sunflower seeds in a little art stall in
Bristol’s indoor market. They are hand-painted porcelain seeds from the Ai
Weiwei installation at the Tate Modern, @ £1. Imagine! you can
own a piece of famous modern art for £1. OK there are millions of them in
existence – but does that matter? Art is not about money, is it?
I thought of spending £10, but after all whether
you own 1 or 10 of them, you have got an Ai Weiwei of your very own so I bought
one for myself and one seed for my friend in Australia. He loves modern art. He once
bought me a Louise Bourgeois handkerchief. I knew he would be thrilled to have
his own Ai Weiwei sunflower seed.
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| Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). |
Afterwards, though, I got to thinking about how they had
originally been displayed – spread out so that people could walk, roll and play
all over them (until it was discovered that the dust they kicked up was not
good for your lungs, then people had to just look at them). I figured it would
be more in the spirit of the Ai Weiwei installation if there was a mass of
sunflower seeds. It wasn’t worth going all the way back to Bristol to buy them.
Could I get the guy to post some more to me, half of which I could then post on
to Australia? How many could I afford? Did anyone-else sell them?
I put “Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds” into my search engine. Lo
and behold! there were many bargain offers of Ai Weiwei Tate Modern sunflower
seeds on ebay. You could get 10 for a fiver, and 100 for £15. They were typical ebay bargains, you know the sort of thing: 40 pairs of
Barbie shoes for £1.99 sent to you from China (No! I did not buy them. My friend from Australia bought
the shoes for my daughter one Christmas– like I say, he appreciates modern
art.)
But – were these ebay seeds real Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds?
Had someone bought up a tanker load of sunflower seeds from the Tate Modern,
shipped them back to China, and then put them on UK ebay to sell back again to people
in Britain? Were they fakes?
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| Ai Weiwei sunflower seed on windowsill with two tea bowls, poppy seedhead, green acorn from the garden, seashell worn by the waves and plastic rose off a Disney Princess toy. |
Did it matter? The original Ai Weiwei seeds were handpainted
and made from china in China, presumably these were also made in China
(although possibly cheaper Philippine ones?). Even if they are not the actual ones
Ai Weiwei used in his original Tate Modern installation, they are still China china
sunflower seeds. Since Ai Weiwei didn’t sign each of his 100 million sunflower
seeds (did anyone even count them? were they sure there were exactly 100
million?), there is nothing to say they are not original Ai Weiweis. Modern art
is about the statement, so having 100 imitation Philippine handpainted sunflower seeds in a box on a windowsill (with some sort of net over them to stop the cats rolling on them and getting the dust in their lungs) would still be a sort-of Ai Weiwei
installation.
Many years ago, I used to venerate classical art,
particularly oil paintings. I was once standing in front of a huge landscape
in the Scottish National Gallery, just being awe-struck and not understanding
much about it except that it was Art. One of my pals came up behind me and
said: “A picture of cows! I love pictures of cows.”
In that moment, my vision of Art shattered. I didn’t revert
to: “I don’t understand art, but I know what I like; I like pictures of cows.” It
was more that I realised art should say something to you.
The art of my day that says things to me is Chris Ofili’s. I
was lucky enough to live in London at the time he was coming to prominence. One
of my London friends, a third generation Hackney vegetable stall trader, told
me he had heard of someone going round Brick Lane market selling lumps of
elephant dung. We fell about laughing and said: “People will buy anything!” I jolly well wish
I’d bought one of those; that was Chris Ofili, and it was an elaborate
statement about African roots, connection to the earth and also, I think, a bit
of a joke on the way people could be overly reverent about anything to do with
their African roots. (So maybe I was right not to buy a lump of African elephant shit.)
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| Accessed by Wikipedia from Tate Gallery web site April 26, 2006 Marked: © Courtesy Chris Ofili - Afroco and Victoria Miro Gallery |
It was just at the time when Shoreditch, and particularly
Hoxton Square, became the happening place for the London art scene. I was
living on a decent council estate in the area – but it was still run-down of
course. I used to hold my little nephew’s hand firmly as we went to the shops
if he came to stay with me, so he wouldn’t fall and cut his knees on the broken
bottles on the pavement. I thought of Shoreditch like that, not as a trendy
happening place. I got a taxi from my flat and asked the driver to take me to
the Victoria Miro Gallery because I wasn’t sure where it was. The driver gave
me a strange look, then drove me round the corner – it was a two minute walk
away.
Chris Ofili’s work is beautiful and full of political
meaning, but I would argue that the art that says most to today’s world is
Damien Hirst’s. His art is all about money. The diamond-studded skull. The dot
paintings which were mostly produced by people he employed in an Andy Warhol
style art factory. He isn’t sure how many were produced in the end, leading to
anxiety among art agents who don’t know how to price his work in consequence.
(He must be laughing as much as Chris Ofili did selling bull elephant shit!) Because
we live in a world obsessed by money, the fact that Damien Hirst’s work is
worth so much, makes it worthwhile art. In earlier centuries, art was about religion and death, now it’s about money and death.
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| The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, by Damien Hirst (low resolution image from Wikipedia). |
Back to the sunflower seed. I’m still not decided whether to
buy a bagload of cheap Ai Weiwei sunflower seeds from a Chinese entrepreneur
off ebay, or to enjoy my solitary seed in splendid isolation. More than one will get dusty and although I like to be worshipped as a Domestic Goddess I am not
that fussed about dusting.
I’m sure the one seed I bought in Bristol is an original
proper Ai Weiwei, anyway. After all, I paid a whole £1 for it.
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