One evening this past August, a group of corrections officers were milling about the James A. Thomas Center, some near a metal bin that read: load and unload all firearms here. Inside cell block number two, a shower was running. It could have been any summer night on Rikers Island, home to New York City’s most notorious jail, were it not for the presence of the Chinese model in the shower, the photographer shooting her, the assorted assistants monitoring screens, and the dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.
Though Ai was not at Rikers in person, he was following the action closely via Skype and orchestrating the scene from his studio 13 time zones away, in Beijing. Detained by Chinese authorities in April, he had disappeared, spending 81 days in a Beijing jail and prompting an international firestorm of protest. Released in June, Ai, China’s most famous and influential contemporary artist, has been prohibited from speaking publicly, giving interviews, or leaving the city—and must get permission even to travel outside his studio and home, where he lives with his wife. But he accepted W’s invitation to create a commissioned work for its sixth annual art issue. In preparation for the project, Ai outlined five scenes that explore what he called “the conflicts between individuals and authorities—be they economic, cultural, political, or religious. I am using my personal experience to address a condition.” Having e-mailed us his concept for a series of film stills, we were tasked with executing his ideas.
“Hello!” he said brightly as his friendly round face, framed by a wispy beard, floated on the screen of the laptop we’d positioned near the shower. “Where are we, exactly?” Rikers Island, I told him. Ai surveyed the shower room, the model, and the two figures flanking her. Emanating from the screen were the sounds of his studio menagerie: some 20 vocal cats, three loudly chirping birds, and various barking dogs. Spying the rusty grout lines between the gray tiles, he advised photographer Max Vadukul that they should appear less pronounced. “Otherwise, it looks good. It has a snap-photo quality,” he said, holding his iPhone up to his computer to take his own picture of the scene.
Vadukul made the necessary adjustments and showed Ai the photos he had just taken on a nearby monitor. He then e-mailed images for the artist to review. As they were downloading in Beijing, we took Ai on an improvised tour of the jailhouse, carting the laptop around the cell blocks, much to the bemusement of the officers on duty. We pointed out that we were in the island’s original Deco building, constructed in 1933 and now used for training and occasional film and TV shoots.
Ai knew of Rikers, having lived in New York’s East Village from 1982 to 1993. He briefly took courses at the Parsons School of Design and the Art Students League and worked odd jobs as a sidewalk portraitist, an extra at the Metropolitan Opera, and a babysitter. (He was also an avid blackjack player, taking frequent trips to Atlantic City by bus.) Though he had studied film at the Beijing Film Academy, he made some of his first forays into photography with the snapshots he took daily in New York, which sparked his realization of the role art could play in political and social action. In fact, the documentary-style pictures he took of the 1988 riots in Tompkins Square Park—as well as other scenes of arrest he’s witnessed—served as a touchstone for the series he created for W.
