Photograph: Ben Pruchnie/Getty Images
The architect and artist Anish Kapoor has exhibited at the Yinchaun biennale in China despite planning to boycott the event in solidarity with his friend and fellow artist Ai Weiwei, who was dropped from the program for political reasons.
Ahead of the biennale’s opening last week, Kapoor told journalists in Seoul that he was considering to withdraw: “Since they’ve excluded Weiwei, I think it’s problematic [to show at the biennale],” he said. “To be honest, I’m wondering if I’m going to take part.”
After it emerged that Kapoor’s work was still part of the biennale, which opened on Friday, Ai responded on Twitter by saying that no artist had reacted to the political victimisation of a fellow artist. “Unsurprising for the Chinese art market,” he said, add added that “of the over 70 artists, most of them from outside of China, none have publicly given their opinion on this issue”.
No artist has reacted to the political victimization of a fellow artist. Unsurprising for the Chinese art market. https://t.co/nVbE9bq5Do
— 艾未未 Ai Weiwei (@aiww) September 12, 2016
The two artists had joined hands as they walked through London last year, in a march to show solidarity with refugees around the world.
Over lunch in Seoul on 31 August, before a new exhibition of his work at the Kukje Gallery, Kapoor said artists needed to take a stand against censorship, and showing at the inaugural Yinchuan biennale implied that they sided with the Chinese government’s alleged censorship of Ai.
“I’m going to dare to say what I really think about it ... I think censorship is not acceptable. We need to stand against it,” Kapoor said. “So even though the work’s on the way I’m not sure I’ll show it. One wants to support these things because it’s a fledgling biennale and they’re trying to do the right thing. But to take part means to be on the side of the authorities. I don’t want to make too much of it, but at the same time it’s problematic.”
His stand was widely reported in the art media, but his work opened at the Yinchuan biennale on Friday. Kapoor has yet to give a statement about his involvement.
Organisers of the biennale had invited Ai to exhibit a sculpture made from steel bars taken from the rubble of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake that left 80,000 people dead – but the work was then excluded from the show a month before the opening. Writing on his Instagram account, Ai said, “I have just learned that my artwork has been excluded due to my ‘political sensitivity’.”
He said a “vague” letter from the artistic director Hsieh Suchen confirmed that his participation had been cancelled – a move that he said “comes as a surprise for an ‘international art biennale’, with over a hundred international artists and a foreign curator”.
He continued: “China is trying to develop into a modern society without freedom of speech, but without political arguments involving higher aesthetic morals and philosophies, art is only served as a puppet of fake cultural efforts.
“Therefore I am happy not to be a part of that effort as a political decoration. I believe the real effort we should make, is in defending freedom of speech for our humanism. Only by doing so, art is worth making.”
Kapoor and Ai have been contacted for further comment by Guardian Australia.
