AWW is hitting the big times - that is, if he can get even bigger, already riding on multi years of ground-breaking art practice, plus coverage on his role as China's most vocal activist, which cumulated in the recent house arrest. Certainly felt proud to have a Chinese artist showing at Tate in such a high profile project!The idea of producing, bespoke, by hand, a hundred million sunflower seeds is mind boggling. The seeds brough a zen quality to the Turbine Hall, but its the video that I find - if possible at all - even more interesting. It shows the story of AWW is feeding an entire village (Jin De Zhen) with his commissioned work, over the course of 5-6 years. He is showing the guts of the "China supply chain", pushed to an extreme with limited automation and tons of manual work - painting each seed by hand, one at a time. The use of video booths where visitors can interview him (and to answer his questions) is an interesting use of modern technology. You can follow his twitter feed on the project too.
I know some compared AWW's show to the previous groundbreaking projects - Doris Salcedo's giant cracks called 'Shibboleth', and Olafur Eliasson's Weather Project with its now signatory sunset, and AWW's work seems to have a smaller presence and didnt quite make good use of the Turbine Hall space. Had to say its true - but hey, its a Chinest artist in Tate Modern!!! In this case, I am blindly supportive, I had to say.
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