Chinese Artist Ceramic Sunflower Seeds

1980 present 21st century.

Chinese artist ceramic sunflower seeds.

Tate modern is to stop visitors walking over the chinese artist ai weiwei s vast field of 100m porcelain sunflower seeds because of health and safety fears over ceramic dust. Sunflower seeds 2010 consists of millions of individually handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds the work has a volume of nearly ten cubic metres weighing approximately ten tonnes. The sculptural installation comprises 100 million handmade porcelain replica. However realistic they may seem these life sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand crafted in porcelain.

Arts and humanities ap college art history global contemporary. Cnn a maverick chinese artist has filled the main hall in london s famous tate modern art gallery with 100 million sunflower seeds. It is a commentary on the mass production techniques that china caters to western countries. Around 150 tons of seeds have been used to make an inches.

Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small scale workshops in the chinese city of jingdezhen. Zaha hadid maxxi national museum of xxi century arts rome. Ai weiwei kui hua zi sunflower seeds essay by megan lorraine debin. Ai weiwei s sunflower seeds is an installation made up of 100 million hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds.

Kui hua zi sunflower seeds is an art installation created by contemporary artist and political activist ai weiwei it was first exhibited at the tate modern art gallery in london from october 2010 to may 2011. The artist has stipulated two different configurations for the work. As revealed by the. Far from being industrially produced they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands.

Altogether the seeds weigh about 10 tons and can be configured in two ways. Adrian searle takes a walk across chinese artist ai weiwei s latest installation at tate modern. Chinese artist ai weiwei holds some seeds from his unilever installation sunflower seeds at the tate modern. The installation in london is made out of millions five tons of hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds.

Follow the artist to the city of jingdezhen in northern jiangxi china where all of the sunflower seeds have been individually hand sculpted and hand painted.