HYPOCRITICAL

Ai Weiwei: Wrong to Smash Vase

Though he also smashed a Han Dynasty vase.

Imitation is not the best form of flattery to Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. In one of his own famous exhibits, Ai has a photo of himself smashing a valuable Han Dynasty vase for the sake of art. However, this Sunday when another artist, Maximo Caminero, came to one of his exhibits at the Perez Art Museum in Miami and dropped a different Han Dynasty vase that Ai had coated in industrial paint, Ai was not pleased. “Damaging other people’s property or disturbing a public program doesn’t really support his cause,” he said in an interview in Beijing. “You cannot stand in front of a classical painting and kill somebody and say that you are inspired by it,” Ai said. Sounds like the pot calling the kettle, or the antique vase, black.