Put under house arrest for 81 days with no reason given. Passport taken away and unable to travel outside of China for four years. Studio demolished by the government one month after its completion.
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is one of the most provocative creative talents of our age and has faced unprecedented scrutiny and abuse from his own government as a result of his practice, which blurs almost completely into his general day-to-day being.
For the first time ever a major exhibition of his works are on show in the UK at the Royal Academy. Charting a series of large and small-scale works made since his return to his native China in 1993, the show is thought provoking and powerful throughout.
At the core of all of his work is a political rhetoric that looks to challenge censorship whilst highlighting the plight of people, the right for freedom of speech and basic human rights.
Flanked by the previously unrecorded names of some 5,000 children who died in poorly built schools during the Sichuan earthquake in 2008, ‘Straight’ is composed of hundreds of tonnes of rebar salvaged from the school itself. Over the course of four years Ai and his team re-straightened the mangled bar and place them together in the gallery to form a colossal and eerie new terrain as both a memorial and attempt to ‘set things right.’
Ai is quite a quotable artist, check out some his best at royalacademy.org.uk.
For more information about the exhibition visit royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/ai-weiwei.
