AI WEIWEI

b.1957, Beijing, China

 

As one of the world’s most critical artists, Ai Weiwei is renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena across today’s geopolitical world. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai uses a wide range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine society and its values.

 

Ai Weiwei endeavors not just to spread Chinese culture across the globe, but appropriate it to express modern, reflective ideas. A porcelain vase can be elegant, but can also be a façade for the feudalistic tradition of treasury and court culture; a zodiac sign can be mythical and symbolic, but can also be down-to-earth and playful as presented by Ai who used lego as a medium.

 

Selected solo exhibitions include “In Search of Humanity”, Albertina Modern, Vienna (Austria, 2022); “Liberty of Doubt”, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (UK, 2022); “Intertwine”, Serralves Museum, Porto, Portugal, 2021; “Defend the Future”, the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Korea (MMCA), Seoul (Korea, 2021); “Rapture”, Cordoaria Nacional, Lisbon (Portugal, 2021); “Ai Weiwei: Trace, Skirball Cultural Center”, Los Angeles (USA, 2021); “Year of the Rat”, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok (Thailand, 2020), “RAIZ” OCA exhibition space, Ibirapuera Park, São Paulo; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rio de Janiero (Brazil, 2019) etc.

 

Selected group exhibitions include “A Dream Within a Dream”, Tang Contemporary Art, Bangkok (Thailand, 2022); “A Century of the Artist’s Studio, 1920-2020”, Whitechapel Gallery, London (UK,2022); “Truc à faire”, Galleria Continua, Paris (France, 2021); “Inaugural Installations: Kinder Building”, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,TX (USA, 2020); “Facing the Collector. The Sigg Collection of Contemporary Art from China”, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art, Torino (Italy, 2020); “Racket of Cobwebs”, Tang Contemporary Art, Hong Kong, China, 2020; “Mobile Immobile”, Archives Nationales Pierrefitte-sur-Seine (France, 2019); “2050, A Brief History of the Future”, National Taiwan Museum of Art, Taichung, (Taiwan, 2018), etc.

 

In 2019, Ai Weiwei won the GQ Magazine Men of the Year 2019 award in the artist category. His largest exhibition to date “RAIZ” is also the highest-ranking show by a single artist in The Art Newspaper visitor figures survey for 2019.