Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has mounted 1200 bicycles in a magnificent floor to ceiling installation as part of a solo exhibition in Taipei.

The artist likely has no environmental statement to make with this installation, but these days it is hard to look at so many bicycles without being put in mind of the energy and transport questions that so many people are working to resolve. Can we really build a successful energy policy on a huge installation of renewables just like this huge installation of bicycles? Or is the mountain to high to climb and talk about moving to a solely renewable energy policy simply the pipe dream of impractical idealists?

Ai Weiwei has gained global fame for his dissident attitude to Chinese authorities. This has earned him persecution by the authorities, destruction of his studios, charges of owing multimillion dollars to the Chinese tax authorities and recurrent arrests and periods of disappearance. The bicycle installation led me to look for any of the artist’s works that addressed environmental issues directly.

An installation entitled “Trees” & “Rocks” (image below) has been interpreted by some to be an allusion to the environmental damage being caused by China’s rapid rate of development. Others, have interpreted the work as the simple recreation of a meditative space.

Huang Xu, a Beijing born artist, collects plastic bags from the endless rubbish heaps now to be found in China and, using 3D scanners normally used by archeologists, digitally re-models them to create these wonderful images.

Plastic bags are an interesting phenomenon of modern life. At some level, they represent economic development, technological advance and convenience. Today, they have become an almost universal symbol of consumption and unsustainable waste. Yet, they are also one of the few areas where we have seen much progress with the introduction of re-usable, re-cyclable and biodegradable bags now being widely available and in common use.

These delicate images of have often been said to evoke the imagery of fine Chinese silk – a material which evokes positive connotations. It’s not clear to me why plastic bags should be seen as a sign of excessive consumption and silk should not.

Rather than simplistically interpreting Huang’s work as a sad commentary on consumption, waste, and pollution, maybe it should lead us to reflect on the difficulty, and fruitlessness, of drawing borders between economic and technological development and excessive consumption and waste.

The shock waves to the global economy provided a narrow window of opportunity during which, stunned, people questioned for a brief moment the wisdom of our culture of unsustainable excess. But no practical and implementable solutions have been forthcoming.

At Art Basel, Miami Beach in December 2008, Chinese artist Zheng Guogu presented an installation called “Lehman Gate” – a commemoration of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the rapid collapse of the world’s financial system that followed.

A series of images installed as rooms through which you could enter and exit were coupled with a ‘Commemorative Plaque’, to create an installation that made visible the consequences of the arrogance and excesses of unbridled capitalism as epitomized by Wall Street’s institutions and their negligent (and often complicit) regulators.

I remember walking through the hugely popular installation and having the same feeling that one gets when confronted by images of any other major human catastrophe.  The images had a powerful effect when viewed in the immediate aftermath of the economic collapse.

I should have realized then that, just as we move past and easily forget other catastrophes, ignoring their lessons and getting back to our usual ways as quickly as possible, so it would be with this economic collapse.

At the time of writing of this post, the S&P 500 has hit its highest point in a year and the start of an economic recovery is visible.  People’s minds have turned back to how quickly they can get back to their pre-collapse patterns of spending and consumption.  A unique window of opportunity for change is closing.

It also seems ironic that it should be a Chinese artist presented by a Chinese group (Vitamin Creative Space) that should have presented this installation.  Here is an extract from the commemorative plaque:

Slippage Gate  (Who is picking up the tab for the USA )

Lehman Gate (Who is to be rescued with 8500 hundred million US dollars)

“A Violent cure” 
Is the commemorative plaque

In the movement of an accelerated history

Sorry, the medicine’s efficacy is difficult to anticipate

We are no longer brothers

If trust is betrayed