Artist: Ai Weiwei
Year: 2018
Medium: CNC-cut vinyl
Measurement: 17 x 48 inches
Banner 51 depicts Emma Goldman (1869-1940, b. Kaunas, Lithuania), the anarchist and feminist political activist, who immigrated to America from Russia in 1885, but was arrested for her outspoken criticism of the US military draft and later deported back to Russia. While there, she grew increasingly critical of the Soviet Union and eventually left to live in England, Canada, and France.
The original banner was on view in Manhattan at the intersection of East 7th Street and 2nd Avenue.
From October 2017 to February 2018, Public Art Fund presented Ai Weiwei's Good Fences Make Good Neighbors in all five boroughs of New York City. Inspired by the international migration crisis and current global geopolitical landscape, the exhibition transformed the security fence into a powerful social and artistic symbol. With over 300 artworks, the interventions grew out of the existing urban infrastructure, using the fabric of the city as its base and drawing attention to the role of the fence in dividing people. The exhibition included 200 individually numbered portraits of immigrants and refugees, from the nineteenth century to today, installed on lampposts across the city. Ai transformed these vinyl banners, traditionally used for advertising, into captivating works of art. He adapted historic photographs from Ellis Island, images of famous refugees, and his own contemporary portraits taken with his studio on their global travels to 40 refugee camps. Rather than printing them like conventional banner ads, each image was laser cut from industrial black vinyl, using the negative space to create a bold, two-sided image.
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