He made the Birds Nest Olympic stadium in Beijing so he'll be brought up forever.
I was introduced to his work as a kid and people seem to always mention him and his work just to say "China bad." Everytime I try to listen to why it just sounds like grey unlistenable sludge. Partially because I don't know much about history in general so I don't know what the mentioned parts of Chinese history are about. My final reason to give up is because I know much/all of what I hear is probably whitewashed propaganda. If he indeed has good criticism, I don't trust Western media to not twist his words out of their original meaning.
Any sources saying why he landed in jail for posting on Instagram? I was an apolitical lib when I saw his Instagram video where he wouldn't open the door for Chinese cops and they came in anyways. All in Chinese so I had no idea why.
It’s not as simple as I made it sound. He was just highly critical of the entire project of the “Great Firewall” and really of any failure of the Chinese government. At the same time he was opening a studio in the most “Western city” of Shanghai, and had parties, and western expats would go because they knew of him.
The Chinese government was just really nervous that this was going to blow up their entire attempt at staving off western cultural domination on the internet. And China has been proven right over the last 15 years about the absolute chaos western internet could bring to a country.
The individualist spirit of the modern art world (specifically Brooklyn, NY’s) just wasn’t compatible to what China was trying to do.