Every media outlet has been crowing about one Maximo Caminero of Miami who went into the Perez Art Gallery, picked up a vase to chest height and let it fall in many pieces. What nonsense. Those same cheap vases were here in Toronto at the same travelling show this summer. Ai Wei Wei said he made them & he broke them - as is shown in the three photos next to the vases - in a protest to something he did not like.
Those vases were made in China and could not have cost more than $1 or $2 at the most. Ai Wei Wei said - correctly - he does not care about the damage as goods always are damaged in travelling shows, and are insured (usually the agreements specify 3x most recently appraised value). That means the Perez Galley will be filling out claim forms for $3 to $6, not millions.
First of all, it appears that the vase in question was 7,000 years oldand was worth approximately $1MM.
Second, although Ai Weiwei has said that at first he figured that insurance would cover the damage, he does not agree with the smashing of the vase, and that when he smashes artworks as part of a performance, he only smashes his own work, not work belonging to others.
What a bizarre story. It also says that Ai Wei Wei takes 2000 year-old vases and dips them into brightly colored paints for his own work, drawing some criticism for defacing the originals. Well, yeah! Where is he even getting these vases to start with? At least Marcel Duchamp didn’t paint a mustache on the actual Mona Lisa!
For some reason I couldn’t get the link to work for me, so I can’t look at the vase in question, I will make a comment though -
If he is choosing the chinese equivalent to a roman amphora, the type that were made in the millions for schlepping liquids like garum and olive oil to market, they are more or less worth what some idiot can be conned into paying for them. [sorry, amphora were the bell canning jars of their day and really were made in the freaking millions. Parts of the Mediterranean are pretty much paved in them.] I guess the chinese version hauled soy sauce and rice wine or whatever.
What would it matter what was inside Wei Wei’s paint. Its worthless once painted like that ?