News & Notes: Artist Ai Weiwei plans to release heavy metal album

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who designed the sculptures currently on display outside the Wilson School, announced plans to release a heavy metal album inspired by the three months he spent under house arrest in 2011.

Ai and his work have gained notoriety for often being heavily critical of the Chinese Communist government. The album will contain a song titled “Great Firewall of China,” referring to the colloquialism for the Chinese government’s restrictions on Internet use, as well as songs referencing the government’s persecution of blind legal activist Chen Guangcheng.

The album will be titled “Divina Commedia,” an allusion to Dante’s Divine Comedy and a play on Ai’s Chinese nickname, “Ai God.” It will be released in about three weeks. Ai does not expect a release in mainland China, but hopes the album will be distributed online.

Ai also said he is working on a second album featuring pop-rock songs he hopes people will be able to sing along to.

Ai said in a telephone interview with Reuters that he was inspired to enter music as another form of expression after not being able to sing along with his guards while under detention. “All I could sing was Chinese People’s Liberation Army songs,” he said to Reuters. “After that I thought: when I’m out, I’d like to do something related to music.”

Ai had planned to visit the University in October 2012 as part of a North American and European tour of several of his art openings. But he announced in September that he would be unable to leave China due to the government authorities’ continued hold on his passport.

“In China, there are no steps,” Ai said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Princetonian in September. “If you try anything, you can easily step into or out of jail.”

In 2009, Ai was beaten by police after speaking with an investigator looking into suspect construction practices by the government in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. A studio he opened in Shanghai was demolished by the government in January 2011. Later that spring he was put under three months of house arrest due to accusations of tax evasion.