{"id":767,"date":"2012-09-01T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-01T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jwolfepr.com\/dev\/?p=767"},"modified":"2024-08-20T22:17:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T22:17:25","slug":"ai-weiwei-never-sorry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jwolfepr.com\/dev\/ai-weiwei-never-sorry\/","title":{"rendered":"Documenting Dissidence: Alison Klayman Directs ‘Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry’ | DV Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Digital Video magazine \u2014 September 2012<\/em>
<\/strong>Documenting <\/strong>Dissidence: Alison Klayman Directs ‘Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry’<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Named by ArtReview<\/em> in 2011 as the most powerful artist in the world, Ai Weiwei is China\u2019s most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. He rose to prominence in 2008, after helping design Beijing\u2019s iconic Bird\u2019s Nest Olympic Stadium and then publicly denouncing China\u2019s embrace of the Games as political propaganda.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Since then, Ai\u2019s critiques of China\u2019s repressive regime have ranged from \u201cperspective studies\u201d\u2014photographs of his raised middle finger in front of monuments such as Tiananmen Square\u2014to memorials to the more than 5,000 schoolchildren who died in shoddy government construction in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry<\/em> documents the celebrated artist\u2019s activities over the past several years, during which time government authorities shut down his blog, beat him, bulldozed his newly-built studio, and, in 2011, held him in secret detention for 81 days, making him China\u2019s most famous missing person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The feature documentary premiered at Sundance in January prior to its limited North American release in July. While working as a journalist in Beijing, director and cinematographer Alison Klayman gained an incredible level of access to Ai\u2019s family and working life, including his mother and young son and the several dozen cats he shelters at his home and studio. What began, in 2008, as a short-term project to promote an upcoming show at a local art gallery, became an unprecedented view of the celebrated artist and his inner circle encompassing his Sunflower Seeds exhibition at the Tate Modern in London and his Michael Moore-esque attempts to receive due process from Chinese police following his assault and subsequent surgery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Klayman shadowed Ai in his Beijing studio as he worked and met with journalists, and as he traveled within China and abroad, initially capturing footage using the using the Sony Professional HVR-A1C HDV camcorder. \u201cIt was my first camera,\u201d Klayman says, describing the many opportunities to buy lightly used digital cameras following the Beijing Olympics in 2008. \u201cIt was definitely more of a prosumer choice, but after he saw me using it, Weiwei ended up buying one for his team as well.\u201d (Read full story…<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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