Ai Weiwei’s Vases in Five Colours (2024) represents a sophisticated continuation of the artist’s career-long interrogation of cultural identity, the mechanics of commercialization, and the weight of artistic heritage. This series of five Murano glass vessels—rendered in a palette of blue, green, mustard, black, and white—functions as a deliberate homage to traditional Chinese ceramic forms while simultaneously reframing them within a globalized, contemporary discourse.

While the vibrant hues of the series reference ancient Chinese glazing techniques, their sleek, translucent surfaces reflect a modern aesthetic sensibility. By utilizing Murano glass—a material synonymous with Venetian artisanal history—Ai Weiwei effectuates a material synthesis of two distinct cultural legacies. In doing so, he complicates traditional notions of authenticity and cultural ownership, positioning the objects at the intersection of Eastern form and Western craftsmanship. This interplay between the artisanal and the industrial serves as a poignant critique of cultural commodification and the transformative pressure of global capitalism on Chinese heritage.

These works transcend their status as decorative objects to become "vessels of contradiction." Central to this tension is the integration of the Coca-Cola emblem, a ubiquitous signifier of Western consumerism that disrupts the historical reverence typically afforded to ancient ceramic traditions.

This gesture directly echoes Ai Weiwei’s seminal provocations of the mid-1990s, most notably:

Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995): A performative destruction of cultural value.

Han Jar Overpainted with Coca-Cola Logo (1995): A physical branding of antiquity.

In the 2024 series, however, the shift in medium recontextualizes the conversation. By moving from the permanence of ancient clay to the inherent fragility of glass, Ai Weiwei highlights the delicate nature of cultural memory. The contrast between the brittle transparency of the Murano glass and the enduring "permanence" of corporate branding suggests a profound duality: the resilience of global capital versus the vulnerability of indigenous cultural identity in an increasingly homogenized world.