Art & Identity

Art & Identity

An identity is the means that differentiates one person from another, makes a person both unique and yet still similar to others, in many ways. Our Identities are shaped by both nature and nurture, it is both genetics and chance that we are born a particular ethnicity and in a particular location. It is through the nurture of our parents, teachers and social interactions we are exposed to particular religion, beliefs, customs, political views and etticeit. Our identity encompasses all of these things, it is a combination of all that we have learnt, been exposed to, and are interested.

Relating art to identity, is a fairly broad process as our identities encompass so many things. More frequently artists place emphasis on a specific aspect of their identity within their work, to pin point their view and express their passion or hatred.

Ai Weiwei, (born 1957, Beijing) is a leading Chinese artist, curator, architectural designer, cultural commentator and activist. Ai Weiwei is best known for his controversial practice which strongly expresses his disdain for communist China, he is angry with China's leaders for holding its people in the past. Within Weiwei's practice he uses powerful symbols' such as Authentic Han dynasty urns and vandalises them with popular iconography as if the urn's were the Communist belief system that he opposes.

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, 530 x 223, 1995

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Han Dynasty Urn with Coca-Cola Logo, 10" by 11" by 11", paint/Han Dynasty urn 1994