Yet if you Google Shu Yong’s Florence opening in English, only a tiny handful of links appear: one to the Global Times and another, somewhat mysteriously, to the Chinese-language site of Macau’s Wynne casino. The Party-state would dearly like everyone else to love Shu more, and Ai Weiwei less. Ai’s persona switched to non grata, while the long-haired Shu became the artist-rebel even a Communist Party could love. Ai created a monumental installation of children’s backpacks in Munich to commemorate the earthquake victims, while Shu celebrated the People’s Republic of China’s sixtieth anniversary with the performance piece Ten Thousand People in Red Dress Sing the National Anthem 一万多人身着红衣高唱国歌.
By the following year, the two artists’ paths had diverged. Ai was then enough of a persona grata to have been invited to help design the stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics (the ‘Birds Nest’). In 2007, Ai Weiwei and Shu Yong had, in fact, been collaborators, with Ai curating a series of exhibitions by Shu Yong at the Imperial City of Beijing gallery. Ai Weiwei’s Snake Ceiling, an installation of children’s backpacks to commemorate the Sichuan earthquake victims
