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Ai Wei Wei under his bicycle sculpture at the NGV.Credit:Eddie Jim

At various stages Ai adopted poses from Warhol:he admires Warhol as a figure who redefined art,who defied the principle that art must be unique and original. Both artists are compulsive shutterbugs;both had a rub with Chairman Mao;and finally,both artists have structured their practice around social networks,large industrial-scale workshops and interventions in media.

The parallels are good and the exhibition ingeniously hunts them down,assembling images in clever dialogue throughout,sometimes reaching into the coincidental,as with a shared enthusiasm for big cities,slow films and cats.

The juxtapositions are fascinating and a deft stroke of curatorship. However,the comparisons in every room jeopardise the immersiveness of a blockbuster exhibition. The show is noisy,jerking you between New York and Beijing in unpredictable rhythms,where the commercial sleaze of the US seems less redeemable and the agonies of Chinese dissidence less serious.

In visual terms,Warhol is no match for Ai. While enjoying the disruptive energy of new art,Ai produces objects in the grand manner of installational practice,with copious components,paradoxical imagery and breathtaking labour. His work is evocative,mustering materials with ancient memory and bringing cultural elements into poignant conundrums.

Maquettes by Ai Weiwei depicting his time in custody while imprisoned by Chinese authorities.Credit:Eddie Jim

An example is an old elm table speared by a giant beam of ironwood,which retains its mortices from a previous architectural life;another is a series of pots on either end of bamboo poles that span the floor and the ceiling. There is no counterpart to such baroque fancy in Warhol.

In moral terms,Warhol pales by the contrast. His flat works look complacent beside the vigorous Ai's,which is not surprising,given Warhol's cynical indifference to the craft of using the imagination. As he opined in words emblazoned on the entrance,"Art is what you can get away with."

Ai Weiwei views Andy Warhol's 1970 Flowers screenprint at the NGV.Credit:Eddie Jim

Elvis as cowboy pointing a gun at us,the legendary face of Marilyn Monroe,Campbell's soup or the electric chair still have impact and were seized by Warhol with sharp instinct for the subject matter of his time,suitable for artificial treatment via photography,illustration and silkscreen.

But beside the demonstrative fertility of Ai,the Warhol silkscreens that brashly declare their emptiness begin to look empty in a less flattering way.

Andy Warhol with Cow Wallpaper,Los Angeles,1966,by Steve Schapiro. The wallpaper has been recreated at the National Gallery of Victoria for the Andy Warhol| Ai Weiwei exhibition.Credit:Steve Schapiro

In visual terms,Warhol is no match for Ai.

The rooms that concentrate on both artists'networking are telling. Warhol's social connectedness artfully toggles between mainstream fame and subcultural fun;meanwhile,Ai's networking reaches out to the world in a direct appeal to ethics and justice.

Sometimes,however,Ai's zeal for social reform gets the better of him and he could have done with a bit of Warhol's impassiveness. The Lego gazebo with slogans is an example:it's a well-intentioned salute to Australian freethinkers but each quotation would be better as a tweet than a laboured monument in plastic bricks.

A richer match for Ai would have been Joseph Beuys,also a charismatic figure whose social sculpture is a model for Ai's projects,with its symbolic content and multiple stakeholders.

Still,you have to admire the NGV for trying such a risky venture on such an enormous scale.

robert.nelson@monash.edu

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