AI Weiwei and Rubelli’s ‘About Silk’ Is a Panopticon of Precious Fabrics
The dissident artist flips the bird once again — this time, in sumptuous silks.
Summary
- Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Italian fabric house Rubelli teamed up to open a show of silk artworks during Milan Design Week
- About Silk weaves Weiwei’s most iconic motifs — including the middle finger, surveillance cameras and chains — into lustrous silk wrappings, bringing material warmth to Weiwei’s sociopolitical commentary
- The exhibition is open through May 15
Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist known for giving oppressive power structures the bird, turns to silk for his new immersive exhibition, threading socio-political commentary into lustrous design.
In About Silk, his ongoing Milan Design Week installation at Rubelli’s Milanese showroom, the medium is the message. The show wraps entire rooms in luxuriant sheets of gold, orange and red, emblazoned with some of Weiwei’s most iconic motifs, tracing a history of struggle and censorship within the artist’s personal life and material history.
Audiences are plunged into spaces enveloped by intricate silk lampas. In a nod to Weiwei’s 2015 wallpaper, “The Animal That Looks Like a Llama But is Really an Alpaca,” baroque ormolus reveal themselves as clusters of security cameras. Elsewhere, Twitter birds, handcuffs, chains and the his famous “Finger,” emblematic of his Study of Perspective series, anchors in ideas like free speech, liberation and giving the middle finger to unjust systems.
Photo: Claudia Zalla / Courtesy Of Rubelli
Photo: Claudia Zalla / Courtesy Of Rubelli
Photo: Claudia Zalla / Courtesy Of Rubelli
A black-and-white documentary on the lower level offers a behind-the-scenes look at the process behind the project, where the artist talks through sketches and experiments, alongside cultural and material dialogue between China and Italy on the basis of fabric.
The show marks the artist’s first foray with silk, a material originating in Neolithic China. The cold geometry of protest symbols become softened by golden metallic threads — a move by Weiwei to recenter human craftsmanship in the face of aggressive technological control: “This shift diminishes tactile experiences and emotions on a large scale, which I believe poses a threat to human nature and to historical memory,” he recently told Wallpaper*.
“That is why, in my collaboration with Rubelli, I sought to develop a new approach using silk, a medium that could embody both functionality and complexity.”
About Silk is now on view in Milan through May 15.
Rubelli Milan
Via Fatebenefratelli, 9,
20121 Milano MI,
Italy
