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A review by brice_mo
Zodiac: A Graphic Memoir by Ai Weiwei
4.0
Thanks to NetGalley and Clarkson for the ARC!
A swirl of memoir, mythology, and memory itself, Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac is simply a delight. I’m not sure artists can ever write about themselves as lucidly as they can write about art, and that seems to be Ai’s operating principle here. He is present only to unite the twelve Zodiac-themed chapters, and the book seems otherwise disinterested in him as a person. Instead, through stories embedded in stories embedded in stories, readers are treated to reflections on the importance of art, its role as a political force, and what it means to the artist.
I haven’t read Ai’s other memoir, and, to be honest, I don’t know much about him, but the decision to frame this as a graphic novel serves an interesting rhetorical function. All memoir is self-mythology, but by depicting it visually, there’s an aspiration of objectivity here. It allows the author to remove himself when he chooses, and this further creates room for a multitude of folktales and insights from other artists. This is a memoir that humbly hopes to be bigger than its writer.
At one point, Ai writes, “time collapses in photos,” and this also seems to be the impetus behind the book’s modality. So much of the author’s work is political, and so much of politics is about who controls history. By using illustrations, history almost folds in on itself here, eliminating political meta-narratives entirely. Ai rejects the impulse to glorify history in any capacity, instead concentrating on beauty and relationships.
In the end, his guiding theme is hope, a concept he returns to with anthemic fervor in each of the book’s cyclical chapters.
A swirl of memoir, mythology, and memory itself, Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac is simply a delight. I’m not sure artists can ever write about themselves as lucidly as they can write about art, and that seems to be Ai’s operating principle here. He is present only to unite the twelve Zodiac-themed chapters, and the book seems otherwise disinterested in him as a person. Instead, through stories embedded in stories embedded in stories, readers are treated to reflections on the importance of art, its role as a political force, and what it means to the artist.
I haven’t read Ai’s other memoir, and, to be honest, I don’t know much about him, but the decision to frame this as a graphic novel serves an interesting rhetorical function. All memoir is self-mythology, but by depicting it visually, there’s an aspiration of objectivity here. It allows the author to remove himself when he chooses, and this further creates room for a multitude of folktales and insights from other artists. This is a memoir that humbly hopes to be bigger than its writer.
At one point, Ai writes, “time collapses in photos,” and this also seems to be the impetus behind the book’s modality. So much of the author’s work is political, and so much of politics is about who controls history. By using illustrations, history almost folds in on itself here, eliminating political meta-narratives entirely. Ai rejects the impulse to glorify history in any capacity, instead concentrating on beauty and relationships.
In the end, his guiding theme is hope, a concept he returns to with anthemic fervor in each of the book’s cyclical chapters.