The notorious Ai Weiwei sent the art world into a frenzy when he announced that he would make a metal record. When he named it “Dumbass,” the excitement only increased.
Now he’s actually following through with his promise of an album. Today he released the track "Laoma Tihua." The video looks like it was shot with a camera phone, and that’s because it probably was. The film shows clips of interactions with the artist’s long-time adversaries, the Chinese police. Documentary sequences are interspersed with surreal images — insects crawl out of a toilet and a blow-up sex doll lies on a bed.
At one point, Ai Weiwei films the police filming someone with a cell phone who is filming the police. This ridiculous scene is darkly funny because it appears to be taken from real life. Such shots recall Ai Weiwei’s militant fight against police behavior and censorship in his home country.
Recently, Ai Weiwei exhibited a series of politically-charged sculptures at Toronto's City Hall. The work consists of figures of the 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac that relate to Chinese sculptures shipped abroad during the mid-19th century, a commentary on how contempoary Chinese identity has been diffused and destructed with increased globalization.
Check out Ai Weiwei's new video below, and read the lyrics in English here.
[via HuffingtonPost]
