Explore Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese contemporary artist and activist. He grew up in northwest China, where his father, a poet, had been exiled by the government. The harsh conditions profoundly impacted Ai’s worldview. He moved to the U.S. to study art in 1981, then returned to China in 1993 when his father became ill.

Ai quickly established himself as a leading figure in Chinese contemporary art, and his work gained increasing international attention with seminal pieces like “Sunflower Seeds” (2010) at Tate Modern or his Study of Perspective series (1993-2017) in which the artist photographs his left hand giving the middle finger to institutions, landmarks, and monuments around the world.

As an activist, he has been critical of the Chinese government’s position on democracy and human rights. His provocative work and critiques led to his arrest in 2011 at the Beijing Capital International Airport, and he was detained for 81 days. Officials kept his passport until 2015, when he then left China and lived for a time in various parts of Europe. He eventually returned to China for a three-week visit with his son 10 years later, which he described as feeling like “a phone call suddenly reconnecting.”