Ai Weiwei plants F Grass as part of the Vancouver Biennale
Tuesday December 23rd, 2014
Yes, the official launch of Ai Weiwei’s Vancouver Biennale sculpture, F Grass, took place in the Twitter-verse, but the real-world unveiling was pretty nifty, too.
On a recent, rainy morning, a cadre of soggy but determined workers and volunteers removed construction fencing, erected signage, then finally and dramatically rolled away the big blue tarpaulins that had been covering the work. Their labours revealed a large, low platform on which are mounted over a thousand hexagonal “tiles”, each tile bearing three “tufts”, each tuft composed of five “blades of grass”, the entirety creating an outsized, double- barred, calligraphic F. F as in freedom, F as in fortitude, F as in “Fuck you!” to surveillance, censorship, and oppression.