Ai WeiWei
Divina Proportione
Huali wood, ø 130 / 70 cm
Photo: Paris Tavitian © Museum of Cycladic Art
Based on geometry and mathematical precision, Ai Weiwei’s Divina Proportione is an exultation of Classical ideals of proportion and harmony. The object takes the form of a colossal polyhedron, a sphere in three dimensions with flat polygonal faces, straight edges and sharp corners. Made of Huali wood, a material associated with classic Chinese furniture, and using the traditional interlocking joinery techniques of Ming dynasty (1368-1644) craftsmanship, the final object has a seamless finish and rhythmic form, stripped of all functional usage aside from one purely decorative. Hugely complex and ambitious, the object exemplifies Ai’s interest in antique Chinese woodwork and carpentry, traditional skill sets which are currently being eroded in favour of the mass production and technological advancement which have become synonymous with modern-day China. Wood as a material is unassuming, universal, functional, yet here it is elevated as a symbol of time, transformation, tradition and reinvention. Paradoxically, ancient Chinese craftsmanship lives on within contemporary art.
Divina Proportione was thought to be based on Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of polyhedra for The Divine Proportion, made to illustrate Luca Pacioli’s book written in 1509. However, in tongue-in-cheek manner, Ai claims to have first encountered the shape in the form of a toy that his cats played with, designed in the image of the spherical object. The design of the Divina Proportione ball is in line with the artist’s architectural projects that evince a clear-cut and precise sense of space. Its extreme regularity of form and volume gives visual concreteness, creating an illusion of simultaneous lightness and weight, an object that is solid yet ethereal. This sense of playfulness coupled with the historical weight of early geometric drawings, are unified into a single, complex object of beauty.
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