Extensive Ai Weiwei exhibition opens in London
- 9 years ago
A new exhibition by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei is opening at London’s Royal Academy of Arts.
It is the UK’s most extensive show of works by the artist, who is famous around the world for addressing human rights abuses, official corruption and the collision between Chinese culture and Western consumerism.
Among the works on display are a 2,000-year-old vase painted with the Coca-Cola logo, a surveillance camera and giant blades of grass carved out of marble.
“I don’t want to make the simple connection with the fact that his father was a distinguished poet but there is something of the poet sensibility in Ai Weiwei, in the way that he works with material, there’s a kind of poetic transformation of a lot of materials,” says Tim Marlow,
Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and co-curator of the exhibition.
Ai, who has been incarcerated in China in the past and had his passport seized by Chinese authorities, was in London for the opening of the exhibition. He wa
It is the UK’s most extensive show of works by the artist, who is famous around the world for addressing human rights abuses, official corruption and the collision between Chinese culture and Western consumerism.
Among the works on display are a 2,000-year-old vase painted with the Coca-Cola logo, a surveillance camera and giant blades of grass carved out of marble.
“I don’t want to make the simple connection with the fact that his father was a distinguished poet but there is something of the poet sensibility in Ai Weiwei, in the way that he works with material, there’s a kind of poetic transformation of a lot of materials,” says Tim Marlow,
Artistic Director of the Royal Academy of Arts and co-curator of the exhibition.
Ai, who has been incarcerated in China in the past and had his passport seized by Chinese authorities, was in London for the opening of the exhibition. He wa