{"id":32962,"date":"2025-09-23T11:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/32962\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T11:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T11:38:08","slug":"ai-weiwei-accuses-die-zeit-of-censorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/32962\/","title":{"rendered":"Ai Weiwei Accuses Die Zeit of Censorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tChinese artist Ai Weiwei<\/a> claimed that the German newspaper Die Zeit portrayed him in \u201ca distorted and unjust manner\u201d in an article it published on Thursday. His claim follows another he made earlier this year, when he alleged that the paper censored an article it commissioned him to write. <\/p>\n

\n\tOn Sunday, he posted on X that he received an interview request in August from Die Zeit through the Ribbon International PR agency. \u201cWhen I heard this, I told my assistant to ensure that they were aware of an unpleasant encounter we had recently experienced with Zeit Magazin,\u201d Ai wrote. \u201cIn July, Zeit Magazin had invited me to write an article, asked me to revise it, then trimmed and edited the piece\u2014only to ultimately refuse to publish it. It is evident that their refusal to publish the article was an act of censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\n\tAi further explained, \u201cIn that article, I had responded truthfully to Zeit Magazin\u2019s prompt: \u2018What I wish I had known about Germany earlier.\u2019 The content probably did not align with what they had hoped for, and so they chose not to publish it. So when Die Zeit approached me to conduct an interview on 14 September, I was genuinely surprised. I thought: really, again?\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the artist asked Ribbon International if it was aware of his past encounter with Die Zeit, he claimed it said it was \u201cfully informed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAi said he agreed to the interview, which took place on September 14 in Kyiv, where he recently unveiled a large-scale installation at the city\u2019s Pavillion 13 responding to armed conflict. He wrote that he was willing to talk because \u201cI try to fulfil interview requests as much as possible because I believe freedom of speech is the cornerstone of both my political and artistic life.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe described a meeting with a Die Zeit journalist, Olivia Kortas, and said she was surprised when he placed his recorder on the table next to her own. \u201cShe repeatedly emphasized certain points that seemed unrelated to the exhibition,\u201d he wrote, leading Ai to ask \u201cwhether she had actually seen the exhibition at Pavilion 13.\u201d She had not seen the show, she allegedly told him.<\/p>\n

When Kortas\u2019s article was published last Thursday, it was titled \u201cThe Annoyance,\u201d and the sub reads, \u201cAi Weiwei intervenes in the war in Kyiv with a work of art. And, quite defiantly, offends many.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany feel offended by Ai Weiwei\u2019s work, which not resonated with them,\u201d the article said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s also his statements that make Ukrainian artists suspicious. A year ago, he said in an interview that Germany was adding fuel to the fire with its arms deliveries. In our conversation, he repeats the statement: \u2018Any nation that doesn\u2019t try to stop the war but instead adds offensive weapons is adding fuel to the fire.\u2019 He also says that Russia should first end the war and then \u2018the EU or NATO should not further encourage the continuation of the war.\u2019 This almost sounds as if the EU or NATO bears some responsibility for Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn X, Ai wrote that he felt compelled to respond to the article. \u201cFirstly, what she wrote was not an accurate reflection of reality; in fact, it included distortions and a subjective value judgement that did not reflect the exhibition\u2019s actual impact or intentions. Their vengeful actions stem from a narrow and petty form of censorship.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAi added that he was speaking out to \u201chighlight how a media outlet in Germany\u2014one that is supposed to be intellectual and has a long history\u2014can act in such a distorted and unjust manner. Ironically, this provides me with new insight into German society and its future. While this is not the image I had hoped to see, I believe that when a society loses its sense of justice and falls under the ideological control of a select few, it risks reliving the darkest chapters of its history.\u201d<\/p>\n

Die Zeit did not reply to ARTnews\u2019s request for comment by the time of publication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese artist Ai Weiwei claimed that the German newspaper Die Zeit portrayed him in \u201ca distorted and unjust…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[27834,437,434,435,436,438,146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-32962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-ai-weiwei","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-il","16":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32962","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}