Colored Vases

Date2010

Maker Ai Weiwei Chinese, born 1957

Label TextChinese archaeological artifacts are often venerated as a bridge connecting the nation’s history and culture from the earliest times to the present. Destroying such symbols amounts to a desecration, but Ai Weiwei has done so repeatedly, with glee, by coating earthen pots with brightly colored, dripping industrial paint. It is unclear whether these pots are in fact from China’s Han dynasty. According to Ai, their original surfaces, now obscured, are much like history, which is “no longer visible but is still there.” Ai’s iconoclasm asks us to confront the values that we hold to be true in our conversations with the past. The artist has also cut up Ming dynasty furniture, reforming them as sculptures; painted Coca-Cola logos on other “ancient” vases; and dropped vases to record their destruction. Is this loss or transformation? Is he defacing or exalting the art?

Object number2013.33

ProvenanceThe artist; [Mary Boone Gallery, New York, 2013]; purchased from gallery by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2013

Photo CreditPhoto: Nathaniel Willson

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Be/longing: Contemporary Asian Art, Feb. 8, 2020 - ongoing [on view Feb. 8, 2020 - Nov. 28, 2021]. Seattle, Washington, Seattle Asian Art Museum, Beyond the Mountain: Contemporary Chinese Artists on the Classical Forms, July 22, 2022 - ongoing.Published ReferencesUpchurch, Michael. "'Conceal/Reveal' at Seattle Asian Art Museum." Seattle Times, January 2, 2015, https://www.seattletimes.com/entertainment/lsquoconceal-revealrsquoat-seattle-asian-art-museum/. Foong, Ping, Xiaojin Wu, and Darielle Mason. "An Asian Art Museum Transformed." Orientations vol. 51, no. 3 (May/June 2020): pp. 50-51, reproduced fig. 8; p. 68, reproduced fig. 28 (installation view).

Credit LineRobert M. Shields Fund for Asian Ceramics

DimensionsDimensions variable, each approx.: 17 x 22 in. (43.2 x 55.9 cm)

MediumCeramic with industrial paint