Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has just announced that he’s releasing a heavy metal album. It’s inspired by Ai Weiwei’s speculative arrest kidnapping by the Chinese government and the 81 days he spent in detention, particularly the time when his omnipresent guards would ask him to sing songs and he didn’t know any songs, so he sang Chinese People’s Liberation Army songs, Ai explains: “After that I thought: when I’m out, I’d like to do something related to music.”
Two of the songs on the album are dedicated to Chen Guangcheng, the civil rights crusader against forced abortions and sterilizations who escaped from Chinese prison, climbed walls, ran through villages on an injured ankle and slipped past ”multiple cordons of guards” WHILE BLIND. That pretty fucking metal.
The album is titled Divina Commedia — yes, like that Dante thing about Hell, Purgatory, etc. Ai Weiwei’s supporters call him “Ai God.” Makes total sense.
“You know, I’m a person that’s furthest away from music, I never sing,” Ai says. “But you’ll be surprised. You’ll like it.”
So… when are that Chapman bro ‘n’ Ai touring together? Monsters of Art. No?
