Divina Proportione

Ai Weiwei’s Untitled (Divina Proportione) (2006) is a scientific marvel and an evocation of mathematical beauty. The work’s title refers to the Renaissance treatise written by Luca Pacioli and illustrated by Leonardo da Vinci. First published in 1509, the text discusses the application and relevance of mathematical proportions in geometry, art and architecture, revealed here in the perfect proportions of the Platonic solid. Though the present work appears to have been summoned directly from Leonardo’s laboratory, Ai’s inspiration for the work was in fact more quotidian—a plastic toy belonging to his cat, an animal with which he shares a deep affinity. The design and production of the work took over two years: it is constructed from reclaimed Huanghuali wood, a luxury material often used in Chinese furniture, and fused using traditional wood-merging techniques. The resulting icosahedron has 12 pentagonal and 20 hexagonal faces, speaking both to the artist’s architectural interests as well as his encounters with Minimalism in 1980s New York.

Born in 1957 to the poets Ai Qing and Gao Ying, Ai is widely considered to be one of China’s most significant and prolific artists. Exhibition offerings this year alone speak to his prodigious activity: 2022 sees solo presentations at Vienna’s Albertina Modern, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, and the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Seoul, along with the staging of Puccini’s Turandot, the artist’s operatic debut, which opened at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. Ai’s oeuvre spans photography, performance, architecture and installation, among other media, to explore ideas around mythmaking, sincerity and fakery, and the political realities facing China today. Like much of his practice, the present work stages a complex encounter between opposing poles: East and West, tradition and progression, gravitas and whimsy, logic and chaos are all wrapped into a single, timeless and never-ending conundrum.