The Wave

2005

Not on view

Returned to lender

This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.

In his Wave sculptures, Ai appropriates the motif’s earlier pictorial representation as “cultural ready-mades.” Made with the assistance of craftsmen at Jingdezhen, in Jiangxi Province, China’s center for fine porcelain production, the celadon-glazed body of this piece recalls vessels produced at the Longquan kilns located outside the Southern Song capital of Hangzhou, while its form may have been inspired by a depiction of waves by the Southern Song court painter Ma Yuan (ca. 1160–1225) as well as the famous Japanese woodblock print Under the Wave off Kanagawa (The Great Wave), by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849).

Artwork Details

Overview

Exhibition History

References

Title: The Wave
Artist: Ai Weiwei (Chinese, born Beijing, 1957)
Date: 2005
Culture: China
Medium: Glazed ceramic
Dimensions: H. 6 1/8 (15.7 cm); W. 16 7/8 in. (42.9 cm); D. 14 3/4 in. (37.6 cm)
Classification: Ceramics
Credit Line: Lent by a private collection, New York
Curatorial Department: Asian Art