Ai Weiwei

Subversion refers to an attempt to change the established social order and its power, authority and hierarchy.

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist that practises in architecture, sculpture  instillation, curating, photography, film and social and political criticism; he is a political activist. His main issue is with the Chinese government and their views on democracy and human rights, and he avidly seeks out conspiracies and makes his opinions very apparent throughout his artwork.

Back in 2008 Ai Weiwei made it his mission to uncover the truth about the number of student casualties that were made when the Sichuan earthquake hit China. He was incarcerated for 81 days in 2011 because of his investigation, Basically he found out the names of the natural disaster victims and tried to uncover any corruption about what really happened, he found that the school buildings were not structurally sound so even though there was a natural disaster, the consequences should've been no where near as catastrophic. His instillation 'Straight' was created out of 150 tons of steel rebar which he collected from the schools that were affected by the quake. Ai straightened all of these as if they were brand new; which took him 3 years, and stacked them up to create the immitation of a landscape; the way they are all different in diameter and the scale of the piece really makes an impact.Upon looking at this work you are compelled with a sense of somberness, in memory of the lives that were lost that day. A further insight is on this youtube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USz6UG6J_gA