“You cannot change the subject, only its interpretation” – Ai Weiwei

The rat and the rabbit heads, then owned by Yves Saint Laurent were put on the block in 2009.

Sold by Christie at the hammer price of 28 million euros to one Mr. Cai,
who, on the next day, announced he would not pay a single sou,
saying, he made the bid to protest the auctioning of his nation’s cultural treasures.

It was later revealed, Mr. Cai worked for the Chinese National Treasure Fund,
a government agency seeking to repatriate all of China’s looted art.

The heads were from a fountain-clock built in the Qing Dynasty.
Created for the Qing court at Haiyantang, ( Hall of Calm Seas ), the Old Summer Palace.

Originally, they were life-sized, atop bodies which were sitting on the floor,
like court musicians, in two groups, left and right of a pool in a European-style garden.

The animals spouted water around the clock.
The Monkey between 3:00 and 5:00 in the afternoon.
The Ox between 1:00 and 3:00 am, early morning.

It was a 24 hour fountain-clock designed in the 18th-century by two French jesuits
who were members of the court.

There are Ohlmer’s 1873 photos of “The Garden of Perfect Brightness”,
at the MIT Visualizing Cultures site, and engravings. Showing what is no longer memory.

The 1860’s was not so long ago. A real world, in China, so well-organized and relaxed,
that they told time in two hour intervals without thought to the minutes in-between.

In London,1848, Karl Marx published the Communist Manifesto,
In America, 1863, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

They were beheaded by French and British troops who ransacked the Yuanming Yuan, in 1860,
during the Second Opium War.

( The western powers went to war to defend their right to sell opium.
The Qing court could not understand why any enlightened people would not stop
such a heinous trade , on their own, when asked. )

The peeved owner retorted by keeping the auctioned heads. Pointedly announcing he would release them to the Chinese government once they freed Tibet and allowed the Dali Lama to go home.

This and more can be found on Wikipedia about the famous clock-fountain.

Two years after this debacle, Ai Weiwei created his first public sculpture, Circle of Animals.
They were copies but not replicas of the looted heads. They were larger, mounted on stands,
standing 12ft high. Cast in both bronze and gold. He sent them on tour around the world.
They are remarkable.

First displayed in Central Park, NY in 2011, each head is in the air,
atop tall spindles upon large, heavy, iron coasters that are bolted to the floor.

They have a monumental presence.
12 Gigantic chess pieces standing tall for our inspection.

They are here, currently staged around a wading pool-fountain in downtown Denver.
They stand silent, no longer telling time.

Their silence and dis-embodiment is a meditation on history and art,
on the looting of national artifacts, on the destruction of the past, greed and pillage,
and the rape of memory.

They stand vigilant, a shameful reminder of our age
where beautiful and precious objects are revered for their auction price,
not their meaning.

Ai Weiwei is not held in esteem by the current Chinese government.
He is exiled like the Dali Lama. They would like to silence him.

The artist that he is, Ai Weiwei, a citizen of the world, answers with silence.
Saying look at this, think on this. Are your free, are you blameless, Do you understand?

The Circle of Animals bear silent witness
much as the heads on pikes did on London Bridge in Shakespeare’s day.
It is all on display.

Today. Denver. Snow Flurries. 25 degrees
Loud and Clear hashtag Ai Weiwei