{"id":32994,"date":"2013-03-14T18:40:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T18:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=32994 "},"modified":"2013-03-14T18:40:00","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T18:40:00","slug":"32994-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=32994","title":{"rendered":"China\\’s artist Ai Weiwei to release heavy metal album"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"2013314_65943707_aiww_main.jpg<\/div>
<\/div>
Ai Weiwei says he became interested in music during his detention in 2011<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has announced plans to release a debut album influenced by heavy metal music.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
The recording will have nine tracks, some of which the artist describes as “more punkish” and some as “more pop”.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Known for his sculptures and installations, he said he became interested in music during his 81 days in detention without charge in 2011.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
After he was released, he was accused of tax evasion and the authorities imposed 15m yuan ($2.4m; £1.6m) fine.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Ai, 55, says the charges are politically motivated.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
‘Expressing opinion’<\/div>
 <\/div>
“When I was arrested, they (guards) would often ask me to sing songs, but because I wasn’t familiar with music, I was embarrassed,” Ai Weiwei was quoted as saying by Reuters.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“All I could sing was Chinese People’s Liberation Army songs.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“After that I thought: when I’m out, I’d like to do something related to music,” he said.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
The album is entitled Divina Commedia after Dante’s famous poem. This is also a reference to “Ai God” nickname given to him by his supporters.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Ai said he wrote the lyrics and would also debut as a singer. The music is the work of rocker Zuoxiao Zuzhou – Ai’s friend.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
But Ai stressed his foray into music did not mean that he was moving away from art.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
“I think it’s all the same. My art is about expressing opinion and communication.”<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
He said he was already working on a second album.<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>Continue reading <\/span><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>the<\/span><\/a> <\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>original article<\/a><\/a><\/a>.<\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/a><\/span> <\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/strong>
 <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has announced plans to release a debut album influenced by heavy metal music. The recording will have nine tracks, some of which the artist describes as "more punkish" and some as "more pop".<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32994\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}