Wikipedia entry
Introduction
Ai Weiwei (Chinese: 艾未未; pinyin: Ài Wèiwèi, English pronunciation: (help·info); born 28 August 1957) is a Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist. Ai grew up in the far northwest of China, where he lived under harsh conditions due to his father's exile. As an activist, he has been openly critical of the Chinese Government's stance on democracy and human rights. He investigated government corruption and cover-ups, in particular the Sichuan schools corruption scandal following the collapse of "tofu-dreg schools" in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In 2011, Ai Weiwei was arrested at Beijing Capital International Airport on 3 April, for "economic crimes". He was detained for 81 days without charge. Ai Weiwei emerged as a vital instigator in Chinese cultural development, an architect of Chinese modernism, and one of the nation's most vocal political commentators.Ai Weiwei encapsulates political conviction and his personal poetry in his many sculptures, photographs, and public works. In doing this, he makes use of Chinese art forms to display Chinese political and social issues.After being allowed to leave China in 2015, he has lived in Berlin, Germany, in Cambridge, UK, with his family, and in Portugal.
Wikidata
Q160115
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Getty record
Introduction
Attended the Beijing Film Academy, then the Art Students League and Parsons School of Design in New York City, from 1981. He returned to China in 1993. He was editor and publisher of art magazines Black Paper, White Paper, and Gray Paper in the mid-1990s, and has been active in the fields of architecture, landscape design, and city planning, as well as constructing works that are more accurately described as sculptural installations.
Nationality
Chinese
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Architect, Curator, Designer, Publisher, Landscape Architect, Conceptual Artist, Installation Artist, Object Artist, Sculptor
Names
Ai Weiwei, Weiwei Ai, Ai Wei Wei, Wei-wei Ai, 艾未未
Ulan
500125586
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Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

Works

36 works online

Exhibitions

Publications

  • Photography at MoMA: 1960 to Now Edited by Quentin Bajac, Lucy Gallun, Roxana Marcoci, and Sarah Hermanson Meister, 2015 Hardcover, 368 pages
  • The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today Roxana Marcoci. Essays by Roxana Marcoci, Geoffrey Batchen, and Tobia Bezzola, 2010 Exhibition catalogue, Hardcover, 256 pages
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