Ai Weiwei (b. 1957)

'I think in history, through art, and through all man-made activities, we not only apply craftsmanship because we want to overcome all the difficulties, but through craftsmanship, we have better understanding of ourselves and our own positions' A. Weiwei.

Ai Weiwei’s Dress with Flowers (2007) presents us with a charming vision of sartorial elegance that at the same time considers the way in which institutions, value-systems and materials combine to give objects aesthetic and cultural value. Expertly created in collaboration with master artists of Jingdezhen, Ai takes the design of a dress bought in bulk from a supermarket and renders it in exquisite porcelain, exploiting the delicacy of his material to capture the flowing folds and creases of the dress while giving its white form a brilliantly gleaming patina. Ai’s work plays with China’s history of production: translating an ordinary, commercially produced dress into a luxurious artefact realised in a heritage material, the artist reflects on both China’s jump from artisan craftsmanship to mass manufacturing, as well as the way in which the institution of art has a transformative effect over the status of an object. Yet Ai is also interested in purpose and functionality; his dress is one that has been turned from an object of living use to something ornamental or historical. Ambiguously placed between these two ways of considering an object, Ai invites us to question how we ascribe value to the objects and artefacts that make up our past and present.