Silence and Recuperation

Abstract

This article discusses the detention of the artist Ai Weiwei and the problematic conditions limiting the criticality of his work both within and outside the People’s Republic of China.

All that is necessary for the forces of evil to succeed is for enough good men to do nothing.

Erroneously attributed to Edmund Burke (This ‘quotation’, which is often attributed to Edmund Burke, does not appear within any of Burke’s writings. It may be based on a paraphrase of the actual quotation from Burke that appears below it here. However, it is impossible to identify any single definitive source. Indeed, there are numerous variations of this erroneously attributed quotation currently in circulation, none of which can be traced back definitively to a particular source.)

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Edmund Burke (Burke 1770)

Published in Broadsheet : Contemporary Visual Art + Culture 40 (3) (September 2011), pp. 178–180. An earlier version was published by Randian-online; http://www.randianonline.com/en/features/features-2011/silence-recuperation.html.