I've been meaning to share some resources about Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Most of you will know his work from his involvement with the "Bird's Nest" stadium built for the Beijing Olympics. He's also a strong voice in country that doesn't appreciate strong voices. His fight for the rights of victims 2008 Sichuan earthquake led to his being beaten by the police so severely that he required emergency brain surgery.

On April 3,2011 he was detained at Beijing airport and later charged with "economic crimes." His current whereabouts are unknown.

This Frontline video was from days before his arrest:

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

Here's a more recent CNN video

And here are some examples of his art.

I had high hopes that The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, the film, would be better than The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest, the book.

It wasn't, really.

My problem with the book is that it was way too slow to get started. The payoff was fun, but it was only 1/7th of the book. The rest wasn't exactly thrilling. I hoped that the movie would compact the 6/7 boring bits and heighten the impact of he 1/7th of the cool bits. It didn't really. It was similarly paced and structured as the book- plodding for the first couple of hours, then really great for the finale. The problem with that happening here is that the finale was about 15 minutes. So it's basically 2 hours of whatever for a truncated courtroom section where all the fun happens.

*meh*

I just thought I should officially point out some shows I've got going on over the next few months. I'm hoping this list is incomplete, actually, but there are some other things that are still in limbo so who knows. Anyway here's what I've got going on:

• 22nd Annual Juried Art Exhibit at the Scollay Square Gallery and the Mayor's Gallery April 4 -May 15th, 2011. Boston City Hall, Boston, MA
• Jamaica Plain Artists Association Exhibit in the State House May 5 -July 8th, 2011. Massachusetts State House, Room 130Boston, MA
• The Hyde presents Typographic Paintings by Rob Larsen September 1, 2011 -September 30, 2011. The Hyde, 5 Fairmount AvenueHyde Park, MA

Also, as I teased in the title of this post, my art was featured in Boston.com's coverage of the HPAA show. That was actually pretty cool.