Chang’an Boulevard

The whole development of China is quite blind. We always think that growth is positive. But it also causes problems. There’s no aesthetic discussion of today’s growth. There’s no rationality. It’s like a giant monster.   Ai Weiwei

The work is recorded along Chang’an Boulevard which runs forty-five kilometers east to west through Beijing. Ai Weiwei divided the distance into intervals. At each measured increment, the artist recorded a single frame for one minute. The whole film is composed of 608 one-minute segments and the total length of the film is 10 hours and 13 minutes. Beijing, the capital of China for over 600 years, has a clear architectonic order in its urban planning. The city is bisected by Chang’an Boulevard along its east-west axis. After 1949, Chang’an Boulevard and Tianmen Square, at the heart of the city, became China’s primary landmarks and the cultural and the political centers. The film records the city through the transformation of urban landscape. The act of recording is minimal: it is filmed in a peaceful, quiet manner, focusing on the nature of time and pure observation. The work reveals Beijing as an organic whole, capturing the rhythms of the city, its social structure, cityscape, socialist-planned economy, capitalist market, political power center, commercial buildings, and industrial units as pieces of a multi-layered urban collage.

Tessa Praun, Curator, January 2012