From names to objects, the hands take over. Sunflower Seeds (Tate Modern, 2010) began as a simple vision—countless small pieces forming a sea—and became 100 million hand-crafted porcelain seeds, each painted by artisans in Jingdezhen. The idea was spoken; the truth was verified through touch, repetition, and skill.
Here, the work argues that authenticity is not merely declared; it is accumulated blow by blow, brush by brush. By insisting on the tactile, Ai Weiwei exposes the hidden economies of making and reminds us that scale without labor is spectacle, but scale with labor is evidence. [...]
