The international art community actively protested against his arrest

Source: artinfo.com

For more than two weeks of no news from the Chinese artist-dissident Aya Weiwei (Ai Weiwei), detained by police in Beijing's airport and taken away in an unknown direction. April 7 Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that Aye was arrested on suspicion of "economic crimes" (according to The New York Times, the Chinese authorities are often a way to justify the detention of "undesirables" of the ruling Communist Party). In an effort to get evidence, the police descended on the staff Aya: April 9, lost his driver and an accountant. Authorities also are trying to discredit an artist through the media.

official Chinese news agency Xinhua published an article where Ai Weiwei is accused of plagiarism. According to this (based on the online rumors) material, the idea of ​​the project in 2007 "Fairy Tale" in which the exhibition documenta in Kassel brought 1,001 Chinese, Hay borrowed from a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts Xian Yue Lucyna (Yue Luqing). How Yue said in a conversation with the correspondent The Guardian, he never Aya plagiarist did not call and plead with him not going to - just in the art world "ideas sometimes intersect. This article also states that certain representatives of the Chinese art community is called the art of Aya "third-rate" and "amateur».

Meanwhile, in The Australian newspaper claimed that the reason for the arrest was one of the works nd - photo artist in the nude, with a soft toy named "Cao no ma" instead of a fig leaf. "Cao no ma" (literally: a horse of grass, mud) - is a fictional creature, similar to the alpaca, a Chinese Internet meme, a symbol of protest against Internet censorship. The bottom line is that the name of this mythical cloven-hoofed sounds like the Chinese curse, meaning "... your mother. " One was done in 2009.

All news about artists in China are censored. Thus, official transcripts from the proceedings of last Thursday's press conference, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the country have been cut all references to Aya, despite the fact that the overwhelming number of questions were about him.

In support of the Aya expressed by the representatives of the Governments of Great Britain, Germany, France and the United States, as well as many important figures of the international art arena. Guggenheim Foundation has published petition , which was signed by, among others, director of MoMA's Glenn Lowry (Glenn Lowry) and director of the Tate Gallery, Sir Nicholas Serota (Nicholas Serota) . April 8 on the roof of the Tate appeared light box with the inscription "Free Aya Weiwei» (Release Ai Weiwei). Near the museum held a protest action, whose members were handing out photos exhibited in the Turbine Hall installation artist "Sunflower Seeds" with the names of Chinese dissidents arrested (IE only one in a long line of intellectuals who were detained in recent months). 10 April about 40 people staged a protest demonstration in Hong Kong.

material was prepared by Julia Maksimova, AI

Sources: artinfo.com , artinvestment.ru