Uploaded November 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
This event took place on Saturday, November 25, 2023.
“KNOW THYSELF” (ΓΝΩΘΙ СΑΥΤΟΝ) is the title of Ai Weiwei’s new exhibition that opened this September at Berlin’s neugerriemschneider gallery. Echoing the famous inscription on the ancient Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi, this exhortation is traditionally associated with the figure of Socrates and the pursuit of an examined life. It is also a core ideal of Bard College Berlin. And yet, what does it mean to know oneself? Why and how should individuals and cultures strive for this ideal? And what is art’s role in urging and shaping the quest for self-knowledge?
Bard College Berlin was pleased to host a panel discussion with Ai Weiwei, one of the most versatile and thought-provoking artists of our time, who is also a global civic activist and documentarian. Starting with the current exhibition at neugerriemschneider gallery, faculty members Ewa Atanassow and Geoff Lehman and senior student Jiayao Lilith Gao engaged Ai in a conversation about artworks from the exhibition, the relationship of his work to diverse traditions and cultural canons, and his vision of art’s power to reflect upon and to inspire global transformations.
https://berlin.bard.edu/events/know-thyself-a-conversation-with-ai-weiwei
▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 - Speech by Dr. Florian Becker
6:46 - Intro by Prof. Dr. Dorothea von Hantelmann
12:18 - Panel discussion
56:31 - Q&A
This event took place on Saturday, November 25, 2023.
“KNOW THYSELF” (ΓΝΩΘΙ СΑΥΤΟΝ) is the title of Ai Weiwei’s new exhibition that opened this September at Berlin’s neugerriemschneider gallery. Echoing the famous inscription on the ancient Greek Temple of Apollo at Delphi, this exhortation is traditionally associated with the figure of Socrates and the pursuit of an examined life. It is also a core ideal of Bard College Berlin. And yet, what does it mean to know oneself? Why and how should individuals and cultures strive for this ideal? And what is art’s role in urging and shaping the quest for self-knowledge?
Bard College Berlin was pleased to host a panel discussion with Ai Weiwei, one of the most versatile and thought-provoking artists of our time, who is also a global civic activist and documentarian. Starting with the current exhibition at neugerriemschneider gallery, faculty members Ewa Atanassow and Geoff Lehman and senior student Jiayao Lilith Gao engaged Ai in a conversation about artworks from the exhibition, the relationship of his work to diverse traditions and cultural canons, and his vision of art’s power to reflect upon and to inspire global transformations.
https://berlin.bard.edu/events/know-thyself-a-conversation-with-ai-weiwei
▬ Contents of this video ▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬
00:00 - Speech by Dr. Florian Becker
6:46 - Intro by Prof. Dr. Dorothea von Hantelmann
12:18 - Panel discussion
56:31 - Q&A
