Mi You as Adjoint Curator to "Around Ai Weiwei: Photographs 1983-2016"

Around Ai Weiwei: Photographs 1983-2016

On View: From 28 October 2016 to 12 February 2017 Venue: CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia, Turin Curator: Davide Quadrio
Adjunct Curator: You Mi

The exhibition is part of the investigation process into photography undertaken by Camera, which over the year since its opening has focused its activities on the study of this language as a medium of artistic expression, of political reflection and social inclusion. Camera has systematically drawn comparisons between photography and other media as well as other artistic disciplines, highlighting its great importance in the contemporary debate and its ability to interface both with the cultural universe as a whole and with a range of audiences. Numerous events, both national and international, including seminars, interventions in the field of the leading institutions in the sector and the circulation of exhibitions organised by Camera in major foreign venues (the FOMU in Antwerp, the Fotomuseum in Winterthur, the SCoP in Shanghai, etc.), testify to the quality of the work carried out and its value within the broader panorama of photography, art and research. Around Ai Weiwei constitutes a further step in this programme, investigating the relationship with photography and video of one of the unquestioned leading names in contemporary art but also a figure central to the analysis of the relationship between East and West as well as our recent and not so recent history. Along an exhibition itinerary that includes photographic and video materials, with a number of documents never seen before, Around Ai Weiwei highlights the various stages of the artistic career of Ai Weiwei – a provocative and outspoken figure – investigating not only his artistic poetics from his debut right up to the present day, but also his role in the cultural, social and political debate, both in China and throughout the world. The exhibition explores the genesis of Ai Weiwei as a public figure and as an icon of the Asiatic world, as well as stimulating a reflection on the way in which the contemporary environment has transformed him and thus pondering ‘who’ Ai Weiwei has become.