Ai Weiwei, “Illumination”

Descending Light

Photograph: Courtesy Mary Boone Gallery

History is a funny thing, and the joke is not lost on Ai Weiwei, China’s leading art provocateur. He grew up in a labor camp during the heyday of the Cultural Revolution, but has since witnessed his country’s rise to the pinnacle of capitalist greed. He moved to New York in 1981, in the days when gallerists wouldn’t offer a Chinese artist a cup of tea. But once he moved back to Beijing in 1993, his career soared to international acclaim. It’s enough to make your head spin, a state that this artist often inflicts on his viewers.

Take the current show, “Illumination,” in which design objects also serve as works of art. The centerpiece is Descending Light, a monumental chandelier that occupies nearly the entire main space of the gallery. Made of 60,000 red crystals, it doesn’t hang from the ceiling but appears to have crashed to the floor, bent in the middle yet still giving off light. The multitiered structure resembles an enormous version of Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International lying on its side like a broken dream. The glowing red light that fills the gallery gives a distinctively Chinese flavor to the work—a symbol for Communism or a nod to traditional Chinese celebrations. Either way, the artist seems to mourn the loss of idealism caused by his country’s rush toward greater and greater economic extravagance.

Though this work could function as a superglamorous light fixture in a grand hotel, it retains its political edge—as should be expected from this artist, who contributed to the design of Beijing’s Olympic stadium, but recently castigated the upcoming games as sheer propaganda.

—Barbara Pollack