Passion of Christ and Martyrdom in
This paper investigates the biblical and political implications of Ai Weiwei's work entitled <S.A.C.R.E.D.>, which was shown at the 55th Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy, 2013. With the biblical Passion images and metaphor of Christ, Ai is finely depicted as Christ and martyr while having suffered during his detention by Chinese authorities for 81 days. Tracing back to such biblical theme as suffering, death, and resurrection of Christ, Ai has played in six large boxes called Supper, Accusers, Cleansing, Ritual, Entropy, Doubt, into which the viewer can peek to see him eating meal, asleep in bed, taking a shower, on toilet with two uniformed guards. The title is reminiscent of religious artifacts by the Italian Old Masters in the church of Sant'Antonin, which represent the invisible holiness. The installation in individual boxes in the church should be interpreted in the context of Christ's Passion such as Agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, Last Supper, Arrest, Mocking, Crucifixion, Deposition, and Lamentation implied in the Stations of the Cross and the Temptations of St Anthony, to whom the church is dedicated. Through the religious images, the viewer can assume Ai's propaganda to the concrete figures of Christ and the Saint to create his own self-portrait. Conceived with the wooden-stool sculpture <Bang> in the German pavilion and with <Straight>, his massive accumulation of crushed rebars from the children's schools collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake at the Zuecca Project Space, Ai in <S.A.C.R.E.D.> can be interpreted as having made a dialogue between the martyr and the dissent artist. <S.A.C.R.E.D.>, Ai's first work made in response to his own trauma and memories during his detention, has surprisingly positioned him as Christ, a saint, and a martyr, although he denied it. This study aims to explore Ai's use of the biblical iconography as metaphor, which reinforces his own torture, claustrophobia, enclosure, surveillance, and humiliation, especially in relation to his detention.