30/09/2022
Ai Weiwei, Seated Buddha, 2021
Fresnel lens, gilted bronze, wood
Lens: 64 x 64 x 171 cm,Statue: 7.6 x 7.6 x 13 cm, Base: 30 x 30 x 47 cm
This artwork is composed of a Fresnel lens from a lighthouse, a seated Gandhara Buddha, and a design-made Buddha altar. The Fresnel lens was borrowed from This artwork is composed of a Fresnel lens from a lighthouse, a seated Gandhara Buddha, and a design-made Buddha altar. The Fresnel lens was borrowed from The Norwegian Coastal Administration, the seated buddha purchased at auction, and the buddha altar hand-made for this work.
In their respective ways, lighthouse lens and the seated Buddha both pointed directions as well as bringing physical or metaphysical light to the world, and they both have been an essential part of life at some point in history, but not anymore.
During the colonial time, lighthouse lens aided navigation for maritime pilots at sea to “explore” and exploit colonized places. Fresnel lens, considered a revolutionary device for lighthouses in the early 1820s, was later abandoned and replaced by satellite navigation; meanwhile, colonialism was replaced by postcolonialism, and analogue by digital.
Tracing back to The Sixteen Kingdoms (AD 304 – 439), the statue of the seated buddha represents the now-abandoned ideas of Buddhism, including its humble posture, cyclical world view and emphasis on human-nature harmony.
While both ready-mades lost their previous practical value and become antiquities, they have acquired a new meaning through the combination between the two and the added altar raising Buddha five steps higher.
Buddha’s seat is the instrument for enlightenment, but a complete misfit here. In fact, each of these three components is a misfit in time and space, but when installed together, they compose a new artwork and are transformed into a concept. The combination of ready-mades and artist’s creation becomes a reminder of bygone eras and those ideas and concepts that we abandoned long ago. It reflects upon colonialism and postcolonialism, and the increasing relevance of the philosophy of Buddhism to today’s world, especially when we face refugee crisis and humanitarian crisis. The work is thus both East and West, antiquities and novelty, purchased and newly made, past and present, here and there, has-beens and beings.
KaviarFactory is a fitting location for this new artwork, the vital finishing touch, as the space invokes navigation and travelling by sea. The Seated Buddha encourages us to review another work in the exhibition, The Navigation Route of the Sea-Watch 3 Migrant Rescue Vessel, June 2019 (2019). The navigation route shows how the Sea-Watch 3 drifted for 16 days in the Mediterranean Sea with more than 40 refugees onboard without being allowed to disembark. It is a proof of the European Union’s violation of human rights and betrayal of its own humanitarian principles. In contrast to self-centered beliefs and “survival of the fittest” in the Western world, Buddhism embraces humanity and pursues harmonious coexistence between human and nature.
– Studio Ai Weiwei, 2021
