Weiwei Ai

Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one of the world's most important artist-activists and a powerful documentary filmmaker. His work and art call attention to attacks on democracy and free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement--often on an epic, international scale. This collection of quotations demonstrates the range of Ai Weiwei's thinking on humanity and mass migration, issues that have occupied him for decades. Selected from articles, interviews, and conversations, Ai Weiwei's words speak to the profound urgency of the global refugee crisis, the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition, and the role of art in providing a voice for the voiceless. Select quotations from the book: "This problem has such a long history, a human history. We are all refugees somehow, somewhere, and at some moment." "Allowing borders to determine your thinking is incompatible with the modern era." "Art is about aesthetics, about morals, about our beliefs in humanity. Without that there is simply no art." "I don't care what all people think. My work belongs to the people who have no voice."

Humanity

This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections. Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career-from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011-providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists. Ai Weiwei is one of China's most influential and inspiring figures. Artist, architect, curator, and activist, he has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government's stance on human rights and democracy.

Weiwei-isms

For three years Weiwei, the most celebrated artist in China & an outspoken social critic, compiled a blog in which he ranged widely over issues of the day as well as art matters. This translation offers a complete documentation of his blog, which was closed down by the government of China on 1st June 2009.

Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009

Ai Weiwei's Blog

David Spalding

"Working from his studio in China, internationally acclaimed artist and activist Ai Weiwei has created a major series of site-specific installations for Alcatraz Island. In this essential catalog, beautiful photographs of the large-scale artworks provide an comprehensive look at this important project, while thought-provoking texts and archival vintage images proffer cultural and historical context"--

Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz

@Large

In 2007, Ai Weiwei, the well-known Chinese artist, architect, curator, and filmmaker, presented "Fairytale" at documenta 12 in Kassel: he invited 1,001 Chinese citizens of different ages and from various backgrounds to Germany to experience Europe's most innovative five-yearly art event and live their own fairytale for 28 days.Although widely discussed in the press, the project hardly fond commentaries worthy of it in terms of scope and interest. Thus, the publication intends to bring forth and reflect upon it by publishing an extensive documentation, which, in this particular case, is an integral part of the project, as well as by soliciting critical commentaries a posteriori, and from a diverse range of viewpoints.The book includes texts commissioned from several authors – Daniel Birnbaum, Director of Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Roger M. Buergel, Artistic Director of documenta 12; Raphael Gygax, Curator at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zurich; Christian Höller, Editor of Springerin magazine, Vienna; and Catherine Wood, Curator of Contemporary Art/Performance at Tate Modern, London-an interview realized at the opening of documenta by Fu Xiao-Dong, as well as documents, photographs, and questionnaires produced over the course of the project.In the end this book highlights the conditions of production of a work which notably called into question the foundations of participation in documenta as a 'global' manifestation of contemporary art, and of which the ideological, curatorial, and artistic parameters become more and more problematic with each new edition.Published with Galerie Urs Meile, Beijing/Lucerne.

Fairytale, a Reader

Ai Weiwei

Beijing Dongjing yi shu gong cheng

an Exhibition of the He Yunchang's Works

Ar Chang's Persistence

Luc Tuymans

Di'an Fan

This book bundles the works of contemporary artists in Belgium and China. China can still be considered as "Terra Incognita" when it comes to art. The image we have of Chinese art is quite clich: China as an imitator of the western world. A confrontat

The State of Things

Mami Kataoka

Charles Merewether

Kerry Brougher

Offers an introduction to Weiwei's work--from photographs and sculpture to documentation of several of his most well-known projects, including his collaboration on the "bird's nest" stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

According to What?

Peter Pakesch

Urs Meile

Philip Tinari

Surveys the career of twentieth-century Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and includes photographs of his sculptures and installations.

Works 2004-2007

Edited by Laura Murray Cree. Preface by Gene Sherman. Introduction by Lisa Havilah. Text by Charles Merewether.

Under Construction

Jacques Herzog

Pierre de (Architekt) Meuron

Beijing, Venice, London

Ai Weiwei, Herzog & de Meuron

This book presents a new chapter in a series of installations that different visual artists and architects from around the world created in Mies van der Rohe's emblematic building. The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filled the pavilion's pools with two typical items that are part of our daily lives, but are completely at odds with an architectural construction: the water in the pools, one exterior and the other interior is replaced, respectively, with milk and coffee. Ai Wei Wei was born in 1957 in Beijing, where he currently lives and works. His work has been shown in a large number of museums and galleries, including the Faurschou Gallery in Beijing, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Ivorypress Art+Books in Madrid and the Beijing Center for Photography, among others.

With Milk, Find Something Everybody Can Use : Intervention in the Mies Van Der Rohe Pavilion

Herzog & de Meuron

Fake Design in the Village

Ai Weiwei Beijing

Edited by Charles Merewether. Essays by Jonathan Napack and Chin-Chin Yap.

Works, Beijing 1993-2003

Hans Ulrich Obrist

Karen Smith

Bernard Fibicher

The first comprehensive monograph on this key figure in China's burgeoning art scene. Often working with ancient materials - beams from destroyed temples, Han dynasty urns - Ai Weiwei (b.1957) creates ingenious sculptures that break new artistic ground while commenting on the rapid transformation of contemporary China. Ai Weiwei's work is consistently innovative and unmistakably original, ranging from his sculptures and photographs to his numerous architectural commissions, and recalls the work of his artistic forebears Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol. A towering figure whose influence can be seen in the multiplicity of his roles: not just an artist, designer and architect, but also curator, publisher, web blogger and cultural compass for an entire generation of Beijing artists.

John Tancock

Stephanie H. Tung

An autobiography in pictures: photographs taken by Ai Weiwei that capture his emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today. Ai Weiwei: Beijing Photographs 1993-2003 is an autobiography in pictures. Ai Weiwei is China's most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic. In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became the art world's most famous missing person. Since then, Ai Weiwei's critiques of China's repressive regime have ranged from playful photographs of his raised middle finger in front of Tiananmen Square to searing memorials to the more than 5,000 schoolchildren who died in shoddy government construction in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Against a backdrop of strict censorship, Ai has become a hero on social media to millions of Chinese citizens. This book, prohibited from publication in China, offers an intimate look at Ai Weiwei's world in the years after his return from New York and preceding his imprisonment and global superstardom. The photographs capture Ai's emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today. There is no more revealing portrait of Ai Weiwei's life in China than this. The book contains more than 600 carefully sequenced images culled from an archive of more than 40,000 photographs taken by Ai: a narrative arc carefully shaped by an artist keenly aware of photography's ability to tell stories. It includes a shattering series of photographs taken between 1993 and 1996 devoted to the final illness and death of Ai's father Ai Qing. The book is a sequel to Ai Weiwei: New York 1983-1993, a privately published book that collected photographs taken by Ai during his years on the New York art scene.

Beijing Photographs, 1993-2003

Greg Hilty

Lisson Gallery is proud to present a major exhibition of work by Ai Weiwei. From 13 May to 16 July 2011 Ai Weiwei will present a show of sculptural and video works at Lisson Gallery. This will be a chance to view a number of key works by the artist, one of the most significant cultural figures of his generation, both in China and internationally.

Yushi Uno

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