http://www.berlin.shi-yu.net

Performance title: “Our Song”

Performance script:
Liu Jin will travel to Berlin to direct a choir spontaneously assembled from members of the audience; one half of the choir will sing the West German national anthem while the other half of the audience will sing the former East German national anthem at the same time (simultaneously).

From the ruins risen newly,
to the future turned, we stand.
Let us serve your good weal truly,
our fatherland!
Triumph over bygone sorrow,
can in unity be won.
For we shall attain a morrow,
when over our fatherland,
there is radiant sun,
there is radiant sun!

Good points.

The “Grass Mud Horse” is acceptable precisely because of its humorous reserve and Ai Weiwei should not mistake people’s acceptance of it as a kind of masochistic pleasure. He leaves the part of witty social criticism of “Grass Mud Horse” in its battle with the Crab while stripping off its humor by blatantly lavishing vulgar abuses, which is not only meaningless but also gawkily stupid.

The analogy between Ai’s video and the British song is much less apporpriate than it seems. The song has a definite target of criticism, that is, the monarchy represented by the queen. It was perfectly fine for any British people that were not satisfied with the monarchy to identify with the sentiment. Besides, the “abuses” in the song was not as vulgar as that in Ai’s video. The singer of the song may not be deemed as crazy.

What I’m saying is: that is PRECISELY what the Sex Pistols did (and, yes, they are British). They cursed out the queen of England on TV and then went on tours around the world with pictures of the queen posted up with bands across her eyes and safety pins and all that punk rock stuff. They rented a boat on her jubileum day (what every that is) and blared music up and down the Thames until they were shut down by the cops. But your point holds: people were offended. Americans have similarly been offended by Michael Moore’s criticisms of the U.S. at French screenings of his movies. It’s only natural, as it is for Chinese.

But that doesn’t mean artists should stop offending people. Offending and being offended are part of art. So, Ai Weiwei has a role to play and your outrage has a role to play. If, in the end, a useful conversation about patriotism and respect for authority and courtesy and what not ensues, then the art was successful. If not, maybe it wasn’t much of a piece.

Incidentally, my big complaint with Thailand (which you noted in an earlier example that I somehow overlooked) isn’t just that they hassle people about insulting the king, but that anything can conceivably be seen to be an insult to the king. So, when workers criticize a company or go on strike, the king can take offense. Grrr…