Ai Weiwei ‘Shocked’ to Discover Out the Authentic Estate Firm Providing His Berlin Apartment Made use of It for Unauthorized Business Film Shoots

Only two years soon after leaving Berlin—and his challenges with Germany—behind to transfer to the U.K., Ai Weiwei has advised Artnet Information that he was “shocked” to find that a corporation that was meant to be caring for and selling his old Berlin condominium as an alternative allegedly utilized the house with out his approval.

The Chinese artist statements that a actual estate business with an business office in Berlin that was helping to promote the apartment performed several “unauthorized” promoting shoots and hosted functions in his former property that he had no knowledge of. The enterprise has disputed the claim.

The Chinese artist purchased the apartment in Prenzlauer Berg, a speedily gentrifying area in former East Berlin, again in 2015, although the dissident activist was still below home arrest in Beijing, China. Ai explained to Artnet Information that, at the time he ordered the flat, he was only ready to get his son and his son’s mother to Germany, when the artist awaited the return of his passport from Chinese authorities.

When he sooner or later resettled in Europe, with the guidance of the German government, Ai and his family members lived in Berlin for many several years. The dwelling on Greifswalderstrasse, Ai said, had constantly been a optimistic house stuffed with touching memories. “This place gave me a very long-missing perception of security,” Ai reported. “From the day I was born, I was compelled to continuously relocate alongside one another with my mother and father, to continuously go away a area and get there in a new one particular, and to endlessly negotiate my identities.” He extra that this feeling of protection the apartment introduced him and his spouse and children produced his discovery of alleged misuse tougher to bear.

While he maintains a studio in Berlin, Ai resolved to depart Germany in 2019, publicly citing the political and social issues there as the purpose for his departure. In June 2021, a bespoke true estate agency was enlisted to provide his apartment, supplying internet marketing expert services to do so.

In early January, Ai claimed he was stunned to learn from his assistant that the apartment was currently being utilised for a film shoot for a chocolate model. “She referred to as to inform me that about 20 people today have been filming in my condominium,” Ai explained. “I could never have imagined that the agency was renting out my flat to 3rd parties for financial gain.” The firm disputes the declare that there ended up 20 individuals in the condominium, including that the purpose of letting a video clip shoot there was to “attract… and further more likely potential buyers in order to realize the ideal achievable price tag.”

The enterprise, according to a termination of agreement letter sent by Ai’s lawyer’s, which was shared with Artnet Information, also produced an added duplicate of his keys. The corporation disputes this, stating they were being approved to accessibility the apartment. But no just one from the serious estate company was on-site, according to Ai’s assistant, who frequented the condominium when the film enterprise was discovered performing there.

Ai mentioned that it turned out the apartment had also been applied for numerous industrial assignments more than the previous six months devoid of his information, which includes products launches, advertising, and manufacturer activities. He stated he and his crew identified scores of on-line posts with illustrations or photos taken within the home endorsing extra than 35 brand names or companies. A single community relations associate experienced posted about the apartment on their business Instagram account, describing the put as a “second household.” The organization said that the 2nd-social gathering real estate agent was knowledgeable about the collaborations and that Ai’s assistant frequented the apartment regularly and “was section of the preparations now and then.”

1 of the advertising and marketing initiatives bundled a advertising for the luxury paint brand name Farrow & Ball, which repainted his condominium and held a photoshoot there. He said he was never ever sent the closing pics or advised when or where they would appear on-line. He said he was amazed to locate them all about the internet when he and his staff appeared into the make any difference this thirty day period. “People are detached from ethical restraints and exaggerate the attractiveness and joy of life,” he explained in his comment to Artnet Information. “This is a popular sickness of our era.”

One of Ai’s kinfolk prepares a meal in the Berlin apartment. Courtesy of the artist.

In their reply to Ai, which the artist shared with Artnet News, the firm reported that internet hosting such marketing gatherings ended up aspect of its method to get the optimum rate probable for the condominium. They added that the organization experienced an present on the desk and that an art earth specialist from New York was fascinated.

Ai explained the circumstance as a return to a “nightmare” of possessing his individual boundaries crossed. “When I saw my ‘home’ interpreted in a language and technique so alien from my personal, it stunned me considerably extra than its destruction would have, and cast a fantastic shadow around my memory,” the artist reported. “When I observed my residence reworked into a vessel for a team of professional parasites to revel in, my sense of identification was as soon as once again overcome by alienation. Only my familiar bewilderment continues to be.”

The practical experience will also possibly do minor to improve Ai’s tarnished thoughts in direction of the state he when named dwelling. The artist moved to Cambridge in 2019, decrying Germany’s increasing populism and anti-refugee sentiments, as well as its coziness with China, as the motives for his departure. “Germany is not an open up society,” he told neighborhood push at the time. “It is a modern society that needs to be open, but previously mentioned all it protects itself.” When the U.K. is not substantially extra progressive, the artist later extra, at least the people today there are “polite.”

The final straw for Ai arrived when he reported that he and his family members had been harassed by a taxi driver in Berlin. The artist explained that when he filed a police criticism, an formal attributed the dispute to “cultural dissimilarities,” a term that Ai termed “an sophisticated wrapper for structural discrimination” that “callously erases all the injustice an outsider has professional.”

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