Ai Weiwei
Ai Weiwei is a prominent Chinese artist and activist known for his intersection of art and social commentary, particularly regarding human rights and government accountability. Born on August 28, 1957, in Beijing, he is the son of esteemed poet Ai Qing and experienced significant hardships during his childhood due to his father's political persecution. Ai Weiwei studied animation at the Beijing Film Academy and later moved to New York, where he developed a distinctive artistic voice through photography and performance art.
His global recognition rose sharply after his involvement in the design of Beijing's National Stadium for the 2008 Olympics, which he later criticized due to the government's inadequate handling of the tragic 2008 Sichuan earthquake that resulted in substantial loss of life. This event deeply influenced his work, leading to powerful installations that memorialized the victims. Ai Weiwei's art often reflects themes of freedom and resistance against oppression, utilizing social media platforms to amplify his critiques of the Chinese government.
Over the years, he has faced significant government backlash, including arrest and detention, which only intensified his resolve to advocate for human rights. His work continues to resonate globally, addressing broader issues of censorship and social justice. Ai Weiwei's artistic journey is characterized by a commitment to using his platform to support marginalized voices and challenge injustices both within China and around the world.
Ai Weiwei
Chinese artist and activist
- Born: August 28, 1957
- Place of Birth: Beijing, China
Education: Beijing Film Academy; Parsons School of Design
Significance: Ai Weiwei's art and activism collided when he distanced himself from his work with the 2008 Olympic stadium project in Beijing in response to China's handling of an earthquake that killed thousands of people.
Background
Ai Weiwei was born on August 28, 1957, in Beijing, China, to mother Gao Ying and father Ai Qing, who was China's poet laureate. Ai Qing, who had studied painting in Paris and was considered an intellectual, was accused of rightism by Mao Zedong's Communist regime in 1958, and his family was forced into a labor camp in Beidahuang, Heilongjiang, in the Gobi Desert. In 1961, the family was relocated to Shihezi, Xinjiang, in northwest China. They lived there until 1967, following Mao's death.
Ai Weiwei enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy in 1978 to study animation, and in 1981, he moved to the United States. He settled in New York City's East Village near the end of 1982 and briefly attended Parsons School of Design. While in New York, Ai Weiwei carried a camera with him, capturing his surroundings through black-and-white photography and composing self-portraits. He also formed a friendship with poet Allen Ginsberg. During the student protests at Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 1989, Ai Weiwei joined New York demonstrations against the Communist regime, but he had no interest in being involved in Chinese politics.
Ai Weiwei returned to Beijing in 1993 when his father fell ill. Between 1993 and Ai Qing's death in 1996, Ai Weiwei focused on performance art and sculpture linked to China's past with a series of Han dynasty urns painted with bright pigments. Ai Weiwei produced underground art books featuring works by Andy Warhol, modern Chinese artists, and himself. In 2000, Ai Weiwei shifted his focus into making art with his studio in Chaoyang and co-curated a short-lived exhibit in Shanghai. Ai Weiwei's attention turned to the Internet in 2005 when he debuted a blog that was critical of the Chinese government that he used as an extension of his art.
Life's Work
Ai Weiwei gained international acclaim for his collaboration with Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron Basel on Beijing's National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics. We was becoming an outspoken critic of the government's treatment of the poor during the lead-up to the Olympics and the government's handling of the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan, where seven thousand people died, including more than five thousand children. Ai Weiwei was highly critical of the subprime construction of schools, where many of the children were killed and the government's secrecy over the death toll and the names of the dead.
In response, Ai Weiwei and groups of volunteers traveled through the affected area to collect names and ages of the deceased. Ai Weiwei published the names of the deceased on his blog in May of 2009 on the earthquake's one-year anniversary, triggering the government to shut down the site. Ai Weiwei joined social media platform Twitter following the blog's disappearance. The tragedy influenced two of his works: Straight, a large-scale installation of straightened rods that were previously twisted by the earthquake, and Remembering, an installation mural displayed at Haus der Kunst in Munich, Germany, featuring nine thousand backpacks symbolizing the bags the children left behind at the earthquake site.
Ai Weiwei employed dozens of artists and assistants to construct his work in his Chaoyang studio in China or at exhibit spaces abroad, with workers performing the physical labor to execute his ideas. For Sunflower Seeds, an installation at Tate Modern art gallery in London, one hundred million porcelain seeds were hand painted by Ai Weiwei and more than one thousand workers in Jingdezhen, China. Exhibit visitors walked on the seeds in a large room. The work illustrated the relationship between Chinese productivity and Western consumption.
In 2010, Ai Weiwei built a studio in Shanghai, and as he continued to criticize Chinese government through his art and in interviews abroad, the government ruled that the building violated building codes and slotted it for demolition. The studio was destroyed on January 11, 2011.
On April 3, 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport as he was about to take a flight to Hong Kong. His arrest sparked global protests. He was detained for 81 days at an undisclosed location, and he was then released without formal charges. His passport was revoked, prohibiting him from leaving the country. In 2012, Ai Weiwei was ordered to pay $2.4 million following a tax evasion investigation. Visitors to his Chaoyang compound would leave monetary donations to go toward his bill.
In September of 2014, while Ai Weiwei was not allowed to leave China, an exhibit titled "@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz" opened at the former prison in San Francisco. Using 1.2 million Lego blocks, 176 portraits of global political activists and prisoners assembled by more than one hundred volunteers covered the prison's floors to make up Trace. Ai Weiwei had not previously visited Alcatraz, but he built sample portraits at his home studio before sending plans and his assistants to California to complete the work. A 2015 exhibit at the Royal Academy of Arts in London featured dioramas depicting the 81 days Ai Weiwei spent in detention, and included handcuffs and surveillance cameras made of marble. Ai Weiwei's passport was reinstated on July 22, 2015.
This was not the end of the controversies surrounding Weiwei, however. In 2021, the The Great Big Art Exhibition rejected his artwork Postcard for Political Prisoners, which included a photo of a treadmill used by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Although the official reason for rejecting the display was that it did not fit the exhibit's theme, Weiwei attributed it to his support for Assange and the exhibitors' unwillingness to deal with that issue.
Two years later, another Weiwei exhibit, this time scheduled for the Lisson Gallery in London, was indefinitely postponed after the artist shared an opinion on issues related to the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
Later in 2024, Weiwei was again in the news when one of his sculptures was vandalized and destroyed while on exhibit in Italy. The piece, a large cube made of porcelain tubes painted to look like ancient Qinghua porcelain works from the Yuan and Ming dynasties, was attacked in mid-September. Sources identified the vandal as Vaclav Pisvejc. Museum camera video shows the Czech man, who has a record of attacking art, approaching the sculpture and pushing it over, then holding a piece of it over his head in triumph. He was arrested, and the demolished work was replaced with a photo of the sculpture and an explanation of what happened.
Impact
Ai Weiwei is an example of how an artist responds to government censorship. His fight has expanded beyond China and has included other oppressed voices and figures outside of the art world, including jailed writer and Nobel Prize winner Liu Xiaobo and South Korean prisoner of North Korea Shin Suk-ja.
Personal Life
Ai Weiwei lives in Beijing with his wife, Lu Qing. Ai Weiwei has a son, Ai Lao, with director and cinematographer Wang Fen.
Bibliography
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