Ai Weiwei is a contemporary artist and political activist. His work across various media, including public installation, performance art and sculpture, has rendered him one of the most prominent figures operating in the art world today.
Ai was born in Beijing on 28 August 1957 and spent his youth in exile due to his father’s politically engaged poetry. Upon his return to Beijing he enrolled at the Beijing Film Academy in 1978, and in same year he co-founded the avant-garde group Stars. After some time in the USA, during which he briefly attended Parsons School of Design, Ai returned to China in 1993. From the early 2000s his work became increasingly political, and between 2005 to 2009 he released blog posts criticising the Chinese government. Following the 2008 Sichuan earthquake Ai condemned the inadequate construction and safeguarding of schools in the area, and he eventually published a list of the names of 5,385 students who had perished due to the disaster.
Ai Weiwei’s public criticism of the Chinese government and their stance on human rights rendered him a person of note. In 2011 he was placed under house arrest, prompting international cultural institutes such as the Tate Modern, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and the International Council of Museums to petition for his release. After being permitted to leave Beijing in 2015, Ai has lived and worked with his family in Europe.
A prolific artist and advocate of a worldwide freedom of expression, Ai continues to produce and exhibit work that engages with human nature and tackles difficult questions such as heritage, borders, censorship, and the liberation of oppressed peoples. He has had many important solo exhibitions with prestigious institutions such as the Royal Academy of Arts in London, the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taipei, and the OCA in Sao Paulo. His political commentaries and activism have been recognised through the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent in 2012, and Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award in 2015.