Tompkins Square Park.

Maker Ai, Weiwei (Chinese, b. 1957)

Date1988

MediumInkjet print

Dimensionsframe: 20 in x 20 in

Credit LineStudy collection; Gift of Ai Weiwei and the FART Foundation

Object number2017:124

Collections

Protest and activism

About the ArtistAi Weiwei is an artist, writer, and activist who blurs the boundaries between art and politics. His provocative work across media—from sculpture, installation, and architecture to photography, film, and social media—boldly confronts current sociopolitical realities both in China and globally. In 2017, the Museum of Contemporary Photography held Ai’s specially curated exhibition, #AiWeiwei, that traced the role of photography in his artistic responses to state power and geopolitics, from documentations of his own burgeoning political consciousness in New York’s East Village avant-garde of the 1980s, to his global photo activism.

Ai Weiwei was born in Beijing. His father, the son of renowned poet Ai Qing, faced persecution during the Cultural Revolution, leading Ai’s family to be exiled from the capital until 1976. Ai enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy in 1978 and became a founding member of the avant-garde art group, the Stars. He lived and worked in New York City from 1983-1993 where he began the practice of documenting his daily life. Upon his return to China, he helped establish Beijing’s next generation of experimental artists. He began blogging in the early 2000s and often used this platform to spread governmentally suppressed information. After Chinese authorities shut down the blog in 2009, Ai moved his commentary over to Twitter, and later Instagram.

Outside of his internet influence, Ai is an equally prolific artist. For example, his sprawling documentary Fairytale (2007), made and shown at Documenta 12, chronicles Ai bringing 1,001 Chinese citizens to Kassel, Germany to experience the annual art event. Another well-known piece, Sunflower Seeds, was a massive installation shown at the Tate Modern, London in 2010 where a pile of over 100 million handmade porcelain sunflower seeds were displayed as a symbolic exploration of the complex exchanges between the individual and the collective.

Ai’s outspoken political conviction has come at great personal risk. After being detained for nearly three months in 2011, Ai was prohibited from leaving Beijing until 2015, when he left China for Berlin, Germany and later, Cambridge, England. He has held major exhibitions at Albertina Modern, Vienna (2022); Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (2012); Royal Academy of Arts, London (2015); and various others. His numerous awards and recognitions include the Chinese Contemporary Art Award (2008); Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent (2012); and Japan’s Praemium Imperiale Award for sculpture (2022). His work is held in the permanent collections of Tate Modern, London; Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and others.