NARRATOR:

Whitewash is an installation work created by Ai Weiwei during the period from 1995 to 2000. The work consists of around 100 Chinese Neolithic earthenware jars. The dimensions of the installation and the number of jars displayed vary depending on the overall set-up.

The work is a collection of two-handled earthenware jars arranged in rows according to the display space, resembling a grid pattern. The jars are of orange-brown colour, similar to the colour of soil, and are decorated with dark-brown patterns. Among the grid of jars, approximately one quarter of them are coated with industrial white paint.

Each jar has a similar form: at the top is a short, cylindrical neck with a slightly curved rim. The shoulder is globular and has two loop handles on the sides at the widest point. Below the handles, the jar body tapers.

Most of the jars, which is around three quarters of the jars in the grid, retain their original dark-brown patterns on their surfaces. The patterns are mainly formed by thick lines, and include motifs such as circles, frogs, parallel stripes, and fish. Some of the patterns are symmetrical. The remaining one quarter of the jars, around 20 in number, are coated with white paint. The paint completely covered their original colours, the decorative patterns, and the historical traces left on the jars’ surfaces. The two kinds of jars are mixed in the overall installation, and the white ones stand out from the bare ones. With the passage of time, some of the white paint has cracked and fallen off, exposing the jars’ original orange-brown colour and the dark patterns.

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