“Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" at the Figge Art Museum -- May 12.
Thursday, May 12, 6:30 p.m.
Figge Art Museum, 225 West Second Street, Davenport IA
Winner of the Special Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and recipient of an “A” rating from Entertainment Weekly, the acclaimed Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry enjoys a May 12 screening at Davenport's Figge Art Museum as part of the venue's Film at the Figge series, this fascinating study of the noted Chinese artist and activist also cited by the National Board of Review as one of its year's five best feature documentaries.
In December of 2008, 24-year-old American Alison Klayman, two years out of college and living in China, was invited to make a short movie about an installation of 10,000 photographs that Weiwei – cited by Art Review magazine as "the most powerful person in the art world" – had taken while living in New York between 1983 and 1993. Klayman followed the artist for three years, gaining unprecedented access, interviewing him, and following him into streets, galleries, restaurants, and police stations.
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry follows its subject from around the time he meets Klayman through just after his release from detention by Chinese authorities in spring of 2011, and among its many inclusions, the movie presents him installing his 2009 show at the Haus der Kunst in Munich and his 100 million-ceramic porcelain piece at the Tate Modern a year later. In between these events, Weiwei gets beaten up by the police in Chengdu; his million-dollar Shanghai studio is razed by the Chinese government; and he is finally detained in April of 2011 at the Beijing airport on his way to Hong Kong and the international call for his whereabouts goes out. For the film, everyone from the artist's brother to his mother to his first gallerist in New York to his wife are interviewed, while Klayman deals with every aspect of Weiwei's career as architect, photographer, conceptual artist, social critic, and blogger.
Critics accorded the film an overwhelmingly positive response upon its release, and it currently holds a 97-percent "freshness rating" on Rotten Tomatoes. Calling the film "galvanizing," Manohla Dargis of the New York Times noted: "The fluidity and convenience of digital moviemaking tools explain some of its freshness, as does Ms. Klayman’s history as a budding documentarian. It’s clear from watching both the feature and its earlier iterations that, while she was learning about Mr. Ai, she was also learning how to tell a visual story. It’s easy to think that hanging around Mr. Ai, a brilliant Conceptual artist and an equally great mass-media interpolater, played a part in her education."
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry will be screened as part of the Film at the Figge series and the venue's free Thursdays at the Figge programming on May 12, admission to the 6:30 p.m. event is free, and registration is not required. For more information, call (563)326-7804 and visit FiggeArtMuseum.org.
