Update: More Chinese go naked to support Ai Weiwei

Update: More Chinese go naked to support Ai Weiwei

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norman lebrecht

November 21, 2011

Reuters reports a wave of nudity protests on Chinese-based websites after the embattled artist Ai Weiwei was questioned by police over disseminating nude photographs of himself, seated with four women (see Guardian report this weekend).

The above image comes from the Shanghaist daily, www.shanghaist.com

and there are several more on site here.

The response is remarkable inasmuch as it violates a deep-seated Chinese prudishness about the naked body. But it serves as further evidence of the disinhibiting power of social websites and online communications in a time of social ferment – as witnessed in Egypt’s Tahrir Square uprising and other upheavals. Canetti had something to say about this in Crowds and Power.

Or perhaps it all goes back to this.

 

Comments

  • gregorylent says:

    that prudishness is long gone in the new genration in places like shanghai … same transition in america in the 1960’s

  • Robert Palmer says:

    More power to the nude Chinese!!!!!

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