Documentary on Ai Weiwei’s New York (20-minute video)

I never got around to noting the exciting future release of Alison Klayman’s documentary on the life of artist Ai Weiwei, though far more prominent writers did. But today I found just a taste of her work from an exhibition last year of Ai’s photographs while living in New York between 1983 and 1993. The 20-minute documentary describes the process of winnowing down 10,000 photographs to less than 250, and features Ai’s reflections on his time there, as well as his working process with curator Stephanie Tung. The Three Shadows co-founder Rong Rong also describes the urge to open for the first time Ai’s box of negatives from New York. (Both Alison and Stephanie are friends of mine, but I would note this nonetheless.)

Here’s the documentary, and check out Ali’s other work on her site. Also available are versions of the doc with Chinese and English subtitles. See also a short video posted on The New Yorker‘s website.

[[Edit: Apparently I can’t embed this video here. Click here for the video on her site, or here for the video on Vimeo.]]