Ai Wei-wei

One of the best known contemporary artists working today, Ai Weiwei is appreciated for his provocative practice which synthesises symbols from Chinese history with elements of modern Western society in a poignant intersection of art, human rights activism, and cultural commentary. In his characteristic anarchic bravado and cynical humour, Ai Weiwei’s controversial oeuvre spans architecture, public sculpture, installation, performance and film, moving between modes of production and investigation, often in relation to contemporary current affairs and always championing freedom of expression.  

Born in Beijing, China, in 1957, Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy in 1978. Between 1981 and 1993 he lived in the United States, primarily in New York, where he attended the Parsons School of Design. Although initially focussing on painting, the artist soon pursued sculpture, inspired by the readymades of Marcel Duchamp and the found objects of Joseph Beuys. Upon his return to China, Ai began to unitecraftsmanship and conceptual creativity to explore his social and political concerns to do with freedom and censorship. Over time, his oeuvre has expanded to explore more broadly the relationship betweenan increasingly modernised China and its rich cultural heritage. Often, this is done through distorting centuries-old artefacts or combining them with signs of Western mass culture and consumerism, for example his 1994 Coca-Cola Vases, Han dynasty urns onto which he painted the Coca-Cola logo. 

Ai reached a global audience in 2008 when, following Sichuan’s devastating earthquake, the artist named over 5000 children who were killed due to substandard construction of their schools, while the government remained silent. Out of his investigation emerged the installation Straight (2008–12), a 90-tonne assemblage of steel bars reclaimed from the site of the collapsed buildings and hammered back straight. Sunflower Seeds (2010) is arguably Ai’s most iconic work, comprising millions of hand-painted porcelain seeds that covered the floor of the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, inviting viewers to meditate on debates of mass production and the exploitation of Chinese labour as well as an East and West dichotomy of cultural definitions of identity and personal freedom. 

In his directness and fearlessness, Ai makes no distinction between his art, his life and his politics, a position which led to his detainment by the Chinese government for 81 days in 2011, and the constant surveillance of his studio since 2009. The artist now lives and continues to work in Portugal.  

Ai has been and continues to be widely exhibited internationally, with notable solo exhibitions including the Design Museum in London, Kettle's Yard in Cambridge, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, among others. His work is held in public collections worldwide including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, De Pont Museum in Tilburg, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Tate in London, among others.