These oversized tea bowls appear at first to bear the motifs of historical Chinese porcelains; however, these designs are actually drawn from ceramics of the British East India Company, an exploitative trading company—and opium trafficker—that colonized parts of South, East, and Southeast Asia from the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries. Though they emulate traditional Chinese styles, the motifs on the bowls depict the flags of a number of European colonial powers, as well as storehouses that held European and American imports during the British occupation of Hong Kong (1842–1997).

En un puesto de libros ambulante del Distrito Artístico 798 de Pekín, Chen Ke se topó con un álbum de fotografías que documentaban a la pintora mexicana Frida Kahlo y su familia, y lo compró inmediatamente. Se inspiró para pintar recreaciones de las propias fotos, así como escenas de su propia vida y de su embarazo en aquel momento. Estos dibujos, esculturas y vídeos forman un “álbum” de medios mixtos de la visión de Chen de la feminidad, desde el comienzo del embarazo hasta la infancia de su hija.

在北京798藝術區的一個書攤前，陳可偶然發現并購入了一本記錄著墨西哥畫家弗里達·卡羅及其家人的攝影集。為這些照片所觸動，她繪製了許多再現這些影像的作品，其中同時記述了她本人當時的孕期生活情景。這些畫作、雕像、影片共同構成了一個綜合媒材的「影集」，表達著陳可從懷孕初期到女兒嬰幼期這一過程中所體悟的關於女性身份的認知。

At a mobile book stand in the 798 Art District of Beijing, Chen Ke stumbled upon an album of photographs documenting Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and her family, which she purchased immediately. She was inspired to paint recreations of the photos themselves, as well as scenes from her own life and pregnancy at the time. These drawings, sculptures, and video form a mixed-media “album” of Chen’s understanding of womanhood, from early pregnancy into her daughter’s infancy.

© Chen Ke, photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

Aquí, Ai Weiwei reinterpreta un conjunto de surtidores de agua que antaño decoraban un reloj de agua de la fuente del fastuoso Yuanmingyuan (Antiguo Palacio de Verano) de Pekín. Los surtidores de agua, diseñados por misioneros jesuitas en el siglo XVIII, indicaban la hora en shi, una unidad de tiempo tradicional china que representa una doceava parte del día, equivalente a dos horas. Representaban los doce animales del zodiaco chino, cada uno de los cuales está asignado a años, meses, semanas, días y un shi.

在這件作品中，艾未未重新詮釋了一組曾被裝飾於北京華麗的圓明園（清朝「夏宮」）中一座噴泉水鐘內的獸形噴水口。由十八世紀的耶穌會傳教士所設計，這一組噴水口被塑造為中國十二生肖動物的形象，分別對應著十二個年、月、週、日、時。作為水鐘的組件部分，這十二尊噴水口按照中國傳統計時單位「時」進行報時。「時」即為一天中的十二分之一，相當於兩個小時。

圓明園於1860年第二次鴉片戰爭期間，遭到英法聯軍破壞掠奪。因此，當其中三尊獸形噴水口在流失海外多年後再度現身於2000年的一場拍賣會時，它們被闡釋為一種國家象徵符號，指代著曾經被西方帝國主義掠去的文化遺產。這種近來被賦予的高度政治化身份一方面提升了它們在藝術市場中的商業價值，另一方面引起了社會上對於建議它們回歸原址的熱切呼籲。

Ai Weiwei here reinterprets a set of water spouts that once decorated a fountain water-clock in Beijing’s lavish Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace). The water spouts, which were designed by Jesuit missionaries in the eighteenth century, told time by spouting water in shi, a traditional Chinese unit of time representing one twelfth of a day, equivalent to two hours. They depicted the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac, each of which is assigned to years, months, weeks, days, and one shi.