Ai Weiwei has generously produced Sunflower Seed, 2024, a limited edition artwork in support of Tate.
Ai's limited edition for Tate references his seminal Unilever Series commission, Sunflower Seeds, 2010, for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall. The commission consisted of over 100 million intricately hand-crafted porcelain sunflower seed husks that together formed a single unique surface. The porcelain sunflower seeds were sculpted and painted by specialists in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Rather than being machine produced, the artwork was the effort of 1600 artisans over two years.
For Ai's limited edition, Sunflower Seed, 2024, an image of a single sunflower seed has been assembled by hand using children's toy bricks. Ai has been exploring the medium of toy bricks since 2014 with his work, Trace, to more recent works such as Water Lilies #1, 2023. Ai believes that the process of slowing down and assembling by hand, whether making a porcelain sculpture of a sunflower seed or an image of a sunflower seed from individual toy bricks, is important in today's fast paced and technology-oriented world. The limited edition, much like the Turbine Hall commission, is a reflection on each piece being a part of the whole, a commentary on the relationship between the individual and the masses.
Each artwork is accompanied by a signed and numbered certificate.
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