Ai Weiwei's famous installation "Sunflower Seeds", which so successfully demonstrated in the Turbine Hall of Tate in 2010, entered the permanent collection galleries. Tate has acquired 10 tons of seeds

Ai Weiwei
Sunflower seeds.
2010 Source: guardian.co.uk

Tate Gallery purchased approximately 8 million individual sculptures , the largest collection of works in its history, although each of these works is less than the little finger: it is about 10 tons of porcelain seed Ai Weiwei.

bought by the number of seeds, however, will not be enough to cover the floor Turbine Hall, as it did in the installation Weiwei "sunflower seeds" in the fall of 2010. In the framework of the first visitors still had a chance to stroll along the beach from the original seed, but after 48 hours of installation was closed on the pretext that the friction of ceramic seeds each on other lifts in the air a large number of harmful dust.

installation "Sunflower Seeds" (2010), which acquired the Tate - is less than one-tenth of the original number of seeds in the work of the artist dissident - 100 million. And every seed modeled and painted by hand, Chinese assistants Ai Weiwei.

Instead of sunflower seeds to cover the floor of the museum, Ai Weiwei invited to put them in a square form or that will be even more clearly, pour them into a large cone-shaped pile of five meters in diameter and five feet in height. It is in this format, seeds exhibited in the Tate since June 2011 and the beginning of 2012. Only this sculpture was provided by Ai Weiwei to rent. Now, Tate could have every right to call them your own.

in buying 8 million seeds Tate helped the British charity organization "Foundation for Art." The transaction price is not disclosed. last year at Sotheby's 10 tons of porcelain seed Ai Weiwei with an estimate of 80-120 thousand pounds went under the hammer for 350,000 pounds, which is about 35 pounds per kilo.

Prepared by Mary Onuchina, AI

Source: artinvestment.ru