Ai Weiwei: Fairytale

DATE: 6/20/2011 | BY CORY REYNOLDS

Truth is stranger than fiction. It has been almost three months since the influential Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was taken into custody at the Beijing Capital International Airport. Last week, artists Daniel Buren and Anish Kapoor canceled Beijing exhibitions in solidarity with Ai, whose case has become an international cause célèbre—and these are just the latest in a long string of protest gestures around the world, which are being cataloged at the website, Free Ai Weiwei.

Featured film stills are reproduced from Fairytale, Ai's own documentary film on his project for Documenta 12 in 2007.

For the piece, Ai notoriously invited 1001 Chinese citizens of different ages and from various backgrounds to Germany, where the fair takes place, to experience their own fairytale for 28 days.

By most accounts, “Fairytale’ was the most sensational artwork at Documenta 12.

The 152 minutes film documents the whole process, beginning with project preparations, and extending to all of the challenges that the participants had to face until their actual travel to Germany--as well as the ideas behind the artist's work.