Ai Wei Wei at the Tate, London...

A few images from the, I believe still ongoing, 'Sunflower Seed' exhibition by the Chinese Artist Ai Wei Wei at the Tate Modern in London. The wastly scaled artwork, which consists of about (give or take a few) 100 million hand-painted ceramic sunflower seeds, occupies a large portion of the museum's ground floor Turbine Hall. The initial intention was to allow people to walk across this field of pseudo-seeds, however, due to the dust this act apparently brought about during its initial opening days, and the health & safety issues that this, in turn, raised with the museum authorities, it was quickly put to a stop. Which is a true shame, as, due to the inherent pixellated quality of the artwork, it becomes very difficult to fully engage with its scale, as it can now only be walked around rather than across... The seeds themselves, which again can only be looked at (as any attempt to actually pick up a few immediately receives a visual and vocal 'slap across ones fingers') still remain quite tactile and subtly seductive in their own right...

The included images have all gone a bit 'Seurat' on me, as it was already dark when I visited the exhibit and my camera's 'low light' settings have a somewhat surreal quality about them. But I actually don't mind the resulting textures, which have a painterly quality and which, as long as they're not too closely connected to any of the textural calamities that result from the use of various Photoshop filters, are actually quite pleasant and have an appropriate grade of coarseness that in character and grain are in line with the artwork and the space its displayed in...