Ai Weiwei Teams Up with Avant Arte to Make his Iconic Artwork Middle Finger Available to All

It has always been a part of people’s visual vocabulary to use what is perceived as obscene or vulgar to state their stance towards power structures, to express political disagreements, to invoke supernatural powers, or to defy social norms. 

In antiquity, the phallus motif was persistently repeated among many scribbles on the walls, bearing a specific symbolic meaning. During the Roman Empire, it was common to see the phallus image on private houses or for individuals to carry a phallus-shaped pendant, as it was believed it provided protection against the evil eye and was considered a good-luck charm. 

In modern times, the perspective changed, and the symbol has fallen out of favour. With new rules of propriety and morality deriving from the Victorian era, the presence of the phallus imagery in public spaces was, and still continues to be seen, as a transgression. 

Another powerful gesture, which became globally recognized as a symbol of defiance, is sticking the middle finger up. The symbolic ‘flip the bird’ motif is globally recognized as a non-verbal form of communicating contempt, defiance, or anger. 

In his latest interactive online artwork, developed with Avant Arte, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei uses this gesture to express his attitude towards the symbols of power and has invited the public to join him in this process.

Ai Weiwei’s Middle Finger, as the work is titled, has already surpassed 10,000 global submissions in the first week, with participants choosing to ‘flip the bird’ at various institutions around the world and popular landmarks, including a Prada store, the British Houses of Parliament, and a RyanAir flight. 

Ai Weiwei – Middle Finger 

Launched on March 16th, Middle Finger is developed in collaboration with Avant Arte — the curated marketplace that makes finding and buying art more accessible — in support of the Design Museum. 

From graffiti to people gesturing, the sign invoked by Weiwei’s work has been present in popular culture and public spaces for a long time. For example, in the Manchester area, street artist Wanksy draws phallus images around potholes, alerting the public and the authorities about the problem. The radical art group Voina also painted the image opposite the FSB headquarters in St. Petersburg, provoking a police intervention. 

In Middle Finger, instead of drawing, Ai Weiwei uses his hand to gesture towards the places of power, such as Tiananmen Square, St Paul’s Cathedral in Rome, and similar, stating his presence, showing his defiance, and provoking the public to do the same. 

The artwork allows each participant to locate any place in the world using Google Maps and flip the artist’s middle finger at it. It uses Weiwei’s recognizable image of the hand and overlays it over street views showing the user’s chosen sites of oppression, including, as the perusing of the archive show, both personal and political choices such as places of worship, airports, political and royal buildings, businesses, residential homes, and financial districts. 

I think often we forget we have the middle finger. Or, even when we know we have the middle finger, we are misusing it.

“I think it’s a good idea to see that part of your body can point to something, or an institution, or someone who resembles power,” he explains, “and just to let them know and to let yourself know that you exist, and to be yourself for that moment is very crucial.”

Study of Perspective

The project Middle Finger is the continuation of the artist’s previous work, Study of Perspective, which he started in 1995. The Study project also used the middle finger as a resistance and self-advocacy tool, photographed in front of a myriad of global landmarks known for enforcing the politics of oppression and control, such as the White House, Mount Rushmore, the Reichstag in Berlin, Trump Tower, and similar. 

Study of Perspective resulted from the artist’s frustration with the slow changes in China. He spent the 1980s and early 1990s in New York, and upon returning to the country, he felt disheartened as things remained more or less the same as when he left. “The government maintained strict censorship and control over people’s thoughts.” 

In 1995, he decided to take a photo of his middle finger raised to Tiananmen Square. “Every year on June 4th, the anniversary of the 1989 massacre of students in Tiananmen Square, me and my friends would go there without any specific reasons. It was my way of not forgetting it.” 

Travelling the world, he later repeated a similar format in front of other buildings: out of contempt, boredom, or other motivations. Afterward, he imagined open-sourcing the gesture so that individuals around the world could express their attitude toward other symbols and places of oppression, but the attempts fell through. Finally, after almost three decades, Avant Arte came in with technology to help the artist realize his dream. 

At the time I took the photo, it did not resonate with anyone. Being somewhat shy, I gave it a humorous title, Study of Perspective, as it was a rather understated gesture. What I never expected was that after more than three decades, people would come to realise the importance of individual expression, including acts of resistance, protest, and contempt for power. This is something that I never could have foreseen.

Making Sense at Design Museum

The Middle Finger projectremains open to public participation and is accompanied by a series of limited editions of Ai Weiwei’s new works, released on the Avant Arte website. The first of the editions in the series is Middle Finger in Red, a silkscreen print released on March 30th. Available for 24 hours only, it was signed by Weiwei and priced at €410 (approx.$440) to allow people to collect high-quality art from leading contemporary artists. 

Four further limited editions, including prints and sculptures, will be released during the course of the Ai Weiwei: Making Sense exhibition. The proceeds of the sales will go to support the work of the Design Museum ahead of the show. 

The exhibition, Ai Weiwei: Making Sense will be on view at Design Museum in London from April 7th until July 30th, 2023. This will be the artist’s first solo presentation focusing on design and architecture and his biggest show in the UK in eight years. 

It will include works that have not been previously shown in the UK, and major new pieces, with the crux of the show being site-specific installations of objects collected by the artist, through which he questions what is valued today.