Ai Weiwei
Monumental art speaks truth to power
"The individual’s yearning for freedom can never be repressed. It always finds expression, in one form or another."
Ai Weiwei is unafraid to speak truth to power. He’s one of the most famous living artists today – a testament to the breadth and vision of his practice. Effortlessly, he moves between different media, from sculpture and architecture to performance and documentary film. His work is often monumental in scale and is driven by a hunger for truth and justice. In 2008, for example, Ai spent many months collecting the names of over 5000 children who lost their lives in the Sichuan earthquake. This unflinching dedication to human rights saw him detained by the Chinese government for 81 days in 2009, a...
Ai Weiwei is unafraid to speak truth to power. He’s one of the most famous living artists today – a testament to the breadth and vision of his practice. Effortlessly, he moves between different media, from sculpture and architecture to performance and documentary film. His work is often monumental in scale and is driven by a hunger for truth and justice. In 2008, for example, Ai spent many months collecting the names of over 5000 children who lost their lives in the Sichuan earthquake. This unflinching dedication to human rights saw him detained by the Chinese government for 81 days in 2009, accused of ‘subverting the state.’
Although Ai’s work isn’t always autobiographical, his life has profoundly shaped his art. Growing up in 1960s and 70s China during the Cultural Revolution, his father was an influential poet. This saw the two of them forcibly moved to the Gurbantünggüt Desert in northwestern China. “The whirlpool that swallowed up my father upended my life too, leaving a mark on me that I carry till this day.” These shadows of history lurk throughout Ai’s oeuvre. They have also moulded the way that he thinks about humanity more broadly. For Ai, history is life.
Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing and now lives and works between Cambridge, Lisbon and Berlin.
Ai is renowned for championing human rights. He received the 2015 Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation.
In 1960s New York Ai met the legendary beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who encouraged him to document his memories. Doing so remains a cornerstone of Ai's practice, and of his diary-like Instagram feed.
Exclusively on Avant Arte
Making prints is about extending your expression
