Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has turned the Bon Marché department store in Paris into an art gallery, reports The New York Times. “Anyone needing more evidence that the distinctions between public and private, high and low, art and commerce, and actual versus Internet celebrity have now imploded beyond recognition need look no further than this example of a populist Chinese dissident artist exhibiting in a luxury department store in one of the world’s fashion capitals.”
“Why the Bon Marché? Mr. Ai said that no French museums had contacted him about organizing a show … The Bon Marché first contacted the artist in late 2014, when he was still prevented from leaving China, said Frédéric Bodenes, the store’s artistic director. Mr. Bodenes said the store was not worried about souring ties with China.”
“We’re about poetry, beauty, dreams. We’re here to entrance our customers, and there’s no politics behind it,” Mr. Bodenes said. “Art is a value-added thing that we give our clients.”
