Tate Modern bought Ai Weiwei's Sunflower Seeds
Posted on March 05, 2012 by Li
The Tate Modern in London earlier today announced that the museum had purchased one of Ai Weiwei’s famous installations of life-size, hand-painted porcelain “Sunflower Seeds.” Tate Modern bought 8 million of the 100 million seeds shown in a giant installation in 2010. The mini-version was bought directly from the artist and the remaining 92 million seeds have been returned to the artist.
When “Sunflower Seeds” was originally installed in the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, the museum encouraged visitors to touch and even walk on the piece. But a few days after the opening officials found that the movement of the crowds released hazardous dust. It was also determined that there were traces of lead in the paint.
The new acquisition may be less than one-tenth the size of the original, but it is still a lot bigger than the sunflower piece by Ai Weiwei that Sotheby’s sold at auction last year. That version was compoesed of 100 000 seeds and was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder for $559,394, or about $5.60 a seed.
Ai Weiwei is currently exhibiting at Magasin 3 in Stockholm. The exhibition is open until June 10th.
Image: Magasin 3
