AI WEIWEI, To fight with Crossed Arms, 2007

AI WEIWEI, To Fight with Crossed Arms, 2007
50,8 cm x 25,4 cm / 20 in x 10 inches
four C-prints, each print verso numbered in ink
edition 18 + 4 AP
estimate US$ 18,000 – US$ 22,000   December 2012
Artsation, Munich, Germany € 28.500,- August 2013

“To fight with Crossed Arms” is a series of 4 photographs and one of the many collaborations between Ai Weiwei and the MAP Office*. With this work the collective intended to engage Ai Wei Wei in a conversation about one of his architectural projects by challenging him to pick up a brick and pose “holding a brick”, “showing a brick”, “throwing a brick” and “putting a brick on the head”. Four positions assumed by Wei Wei: the architect, the curator, the critic, the artist and presented as an allegory.

* MAP Office is a multidisciplinary platform devised by Laurent Gutierrez (born 1966, Casablanca, Monaco) and Valérie Portefaix (born 1969, Saint-Etienne, France). This duo of artists/architects has been based in Hong Kong since 1996. Their entire project forms a critique of spatio-temporal anomalies and documents how human beings subvert and appropriate space, humour, games and fiction are usually part of their approach.