The Danger Artist (Kindle Single) (GQ Books) [Kindle Edition]

Wyatt Mason (Author)

Book Description

The artist Ai Weiwei -- photographer, architect, gambler, orchestrator of installations, organizer of happenings, troublemaker and tweeter -- is one of China's most outspoken dissidents. He has continually tested the bounds of free speech and in the Spring of 2011, Beijing officials took the dare. Since June, he has remained under virtual house arrest, forbidden from blogging, tweeting and giving interviews to the foreign press. That did not stop GQ's Wyatt Mason from trying to pay him a visit.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Meet Ai Weiwei, China's most dangerous man. If you don't know about Ai yet, don't worry. You're not alone. Ai Weiwei is both very famous and very hard to pin down, a modern Chinese artist of international renown whose art you cannot find on display in China. A blackjack guru, photographer, dissident, architect, cultural critic, and high-volume tweeter. He is also a man who, on April 3, 2011, was whisked away by Chinese authorities and disappeared for 81 days. Wyatt Mason, a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Harper's, goes to China to track down Ai, but finds himself struggling, though a stifling, smog-laden Beijing summer, to find someone who will even mention him. Mason's ultimate goal is a meeting with the artist, but speaking to Ai, who is under house arrest and forbidden to talk with foreign journalists, is not easy. In fact, just finding his world-famous art studio is not easy. On his journey, Mason uncovers some of the simmering societal tensions in modern day, urban China. --Benjamin Moebius

About the Author

Wyatt Mason is a contributing writer for the New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Harper's. He won a National Magazine Award in 2006 and teaches at Bard College.

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Product Details

• File Size: 129 KB
• Print Length: 21 pages
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: GQ Magazine (US) (December 5, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B006IVMYKE
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,011 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #33 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > Profiles
  • #34 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > Arts & Entertainment
  • #53 in Kindle Store > Kindle Singles > The World Stage

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding the Strangenesses December 18, 2011

By JackReads

Format:Kindle Edition

Wyatt Mason begins "The Danger Artist" in late July one month after Ai Weiwei was released from the Chinese authority. Knowing the likelihood of speaking with Ai was slim to none, the narrative is formed around the impossible journey of finding Ai. Seemingly defeated at the outset, the journey attempts "to see enough of the world he [Ai] called his own to make sense of a matter of no small interest: Why it is that not a few people of discernment now consider him to be one of the most significant artists working today."

In the short ten days of Mason's visit to Beijing, he indeed sees enough of Beijing to capture the city's strangeness or "strangenesses." On the common uncommon qualities we hear about Beijing--the unbearable smog, heat, vastness and sheer enormity--Mason's telling is original and beautifully seen. And despite the gravity of subject, levity is not lacking in the odd situations Mason finds himself in, from an `unprincipled paparazzo' diner stakeout to an awkward spa moment involving the question "you want massage...here."

These vignettes when interwoven communicate the crux of China's strangeness, that elusive strangeness of life in a totalitarian state. It's not so much that Mason writes it directly, but in each vignette the reader gets more a sense of the muted yet pervasive illogic, double-talk, and absurdity in daily happenings. It's like when Mason arrives at the final stop, and says "We were here. And yet we were not."

In feeling some small part of Ai's world, does the difficultly of seeing through all the strangenesses become apparent and does Ai's insistence on reality and fact in his art truly become extraordinary. A wonderfully written and thoughtful essay--I highly recommend it.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Power of Thinking under Dictatorship December 18, 2011

By The Jurisprude

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

I just read Mr. Mason's book on Ai Weiwei the day that Vaclav Havel died, and the parallels are extraordinary. Ai Weiwei is not only one of my favorite artists, which I knew. What I did not know is how courageous he is and how he has become one of the leading political actors in China, someone whose insistence on truth is making him the most dangerous man in China, at least from the perspective of the Chinese Communist Party. He is also one of the most interesting. This is a spectacular book-length essay that is beautifully written and brings you into Ai Weiwei's world slowly and deeply. By the end I was left wanting more. It reminds me of Hannah Arendt's insight, that in dictatorship simply thinking becomes political. The Danger Artist (GQ Books) Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Whatever we think is meaningful is somehow dangerous December 17, 2011

By savonarola

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Wyatt Mason arrived in Beijing a month after the Chinese artist, dissident, gambler, provocateur and conscientious objector via Twitter Ai Weiwei was released from an 81-day detention by police and forbidden from speaking to the international press. This gripping, furious, and beautifully reported dispatch from the maw of the simmering megalopolis (Mao's credo "no construction without destruction" has found its ultimate expression in the city's current building boom) tells the story of Mason's careful dance to meet his subject--Ai Weiwei's studio is watched by cameras and his every move, both online and off, is monitored--and his encounters with a society where everything is furtive, it seems, except consumption. I won't play spoiler here and reveal what happens; but Mason manages to capture, with just a few deftly chosen scenes, the strangeness of life in the hybrid state that the PRC has become, the cost of its repressive human rights policies, and the true value of artistic expression, which is only dimly related to any work's value in the marketplace. This is not your ordinary magazine writing, and it should be required reading for ayone who loves their Chinese-made handhelds and readers. I'm going to tell everyone I know about this Single!