Ai Weiwei + Camber Studio Envision A Thought-Scary Pavilion

A pavilion by Ai Weiwei and Camber Studio at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park in New York meditated on the safeguards of democracy.

Ai Weiwei + Camber Studio Envision A Pavilion With A Message

• Dozens of engineers and installers directed by Ai Weiwei
• 22,000 sq. ft of camouflage netting
• 13 pine poles
• 24 ft tall
• 4,000 kilos of metal weldments
• 2 months on view

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An early rendering reveals the essential construction of Camouflage, a short lived pavilion at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in New York by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Brooklyn-based design and fabrication outfit Camber Studio—the inaugural fee by the park conservancy’s Art X Freedom initiative, which addresses the basic human rights proclaimed by the previous president which might be at present underneath assault.

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The six Douglas-fir bases that anchored the pavilion had been made in Camber’s Red Hook workshop.

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Over two weeks, a system of Southern yellow pine posts had been put in on the park’s tip, a granite plaza known as the Room.

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Custom metal clevises and 600 linear ft of ratchet straps secured the posts.

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Over the poles and embankments, staff draped and pinned the Weiwei-designed netting, its sample derived from the camouflage he noticed throughout a latest go to to Ukraine, however right here printed with feline imagery that nodded to the close by Wildlife Freedom Foundation Cat Sanctuary.

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The 4-acre park, which memorializes Roosevelt’s beliefs of freedom of speech and worship and freedom from need and concern articulated in his 1941 State of the Union tackle, was designed by architect Louis Kahn in 1973 however accomplished posthumously in 2012. 

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At nightfall for Camouflage, which ran September to November and was Weiwei’s first main art work in New York since 2017, the Ukrainian proverb “For some people, war is war; for others war is the dear mother” could be lit up in neon.

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Weiwei’s netting was meant to concurrently evoke vulnerability and safety, and guests had been invited to tie it with ribbons inscribed with their private reflections on freedom.

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Sited close to sculptor Jo Davidson’s 1934 bronze bust of Roosevelt, Camouflage and Art X Freedom marked the eightieth anniversary of WWII’s finish and the UN General Assembly.