Ai Weiwei

Renowned artist Ai Weiwei engaged nearly 900,000 visitors in a conversation about human rights with his art installation @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz. In one participatory piece, Yours Truly, visitors sent 92,829 postcards to prisoners of conscience around the world. This book delves into those postcards' lasting impact. Five former prisoners and their loved ones reflect on the experience of receiving hundreds of postcards while imprisoned. Essays and a statement by Ai Weiwei contextualize this extraordinary project. And photographs taken during the exhibition show visitors and the messages they wrote. The book also includes four pre-addressed, tear-out postcards, inviting readers-whether art lovers or activists-to send hope to individuals still imprisoned for defending human rights.

Through the sweeping, extraordinary story of his own and his father's lives, Ai Weiwei - one of the world's most famous artists and activists - tells an epic tale of China over the last 100 years. Ai Weiwei's sculptures and installations have been viewed by millions around the globe, and his architectural achievements include helping to design Beijing's iconic Bird's Nest Olympic Stadium. But his political activism has long made him a target of the Chinese authorities, which culminated in months of secret detention without charge in 2011. Here, for the first time, Ai Weiwei explores the origins of his exceptional creativity and passionate political beliefs through his own life story and that of his father, whose own creativity was stifled. Once an intimate of Mao Zedong, Ai Weiwei's father was branded a rightist during the Cultural Revolution, and he and his family were banished to a desolate place known as 'Little Siberia', where Ai Qing was sentenced to hard labour cleaning public toilets. Ai Weiwei recounts his childhood in exile, and his difficult decision to leave his family to study art in America. With candour and wit, he details his return to China and his rise from artistic unknown to art world superstar and international human rights activist - and how his work has been shaped by living under a totalitarian regime. At once ambitious and intimate, 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows offers a deep understanding of the forces that have shaped modern China, and serves as a timely reminder of the urgent need to protect freedom of expression.

Writings on human life and the refugee crisis by the most important political artist of our time Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) is widely known as an artist across media: sculpture, installation, photography, performance, and architecture. He is also one of the world's most important artist-activists and a powerful documentary filmmaker. His work and art call attention to attacks on democracy and free speech, abuses of human rights, and human displacement--often on an epic, international scale. This collection of quotations demonstrates the range of Ai Weiwei's thinking on humanity and mass migration, issues that have occupied him for decades. Selected from articles, interviews, and conversations, Ai Weiwei's words speak to the profound urgency of the global refugee crisis, the resilience and vulnerability of the human condition, and the role of art in providing a voice for the voiceless.

This collection of quotes demonstrates the elegant simplicity of Ai Weiwei's thoughts on key aspects of his art, politics, and life. A master at communicating powerful ideas in astonishingly few words, Ai Weiwei is known for his innovative use of social media to disseminate his views. The short quotations presented here have been carefully selected from articles, tweets, and interviews given by this acclaimed Chinese artist and activist. The book is organized into six categories: freedom of expression; art and activism; government, power, and moral choices; the digital world; history, the historical moment, and the future; and personal reflections. Together, these quotes span some of the most revealing moments of Ai Weiwei's eventful career—from his risky investigation into student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to his arbitrary arrest in 2011—providing a window into the mind of one of the world's most electrifying and courageous contemporary artists. Select Quotes from the Book: On Freedom of Expression *"Say what you need to say plainly, and then take responsibility for it." *"A small act is worth a million thoughts." *"Liberty is about our rights to question everything." On Art and Activism *"Everything is art. Everything is politics." *"The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay." *"Life is art. Art is life. I never separate it. I don't feel that much anger. I equally have a lot of joy." On Government, Power, and Making Moral Choices *"Once you've tasted freedom, it stays in your heart and no one can take it. Then, you can be more powerful than a whole country." *"I feel powerless all the time, but I regain my energy by making a very small difference that won't cost me much." *"Tips on surviving the regime: Respect yourself and speak for others. Do one small thing every day to prove the existence of justice." On the Digital World *"Only with the Internet can a peasant I have never met hear my voice and I can learn what's on his mind. A fairy tale has come true." *"The Internet is uncontrollable. And if the Internet is uncontrollable, freedom will win. It's as simple as that." *"The Internet is the best thing that could have happened to China." On History, the Historical Moment, and the Future *"If a nation cannot face its past, it has no future." *"We need to get out of the old language." *"The world is a sphere, there is no East or West." Personal Reflections *"I've never planned any part of my career— except being an artist. And I was pushed into that corner because I thought being an artist was the only way to have a little freedom." *"Anyone fighting for freedom does not want to totally lose their freedom." *"Expressing oneself is like a drug. I'm so addicted to it."

The first book to dive exclusively into Ai Weiwei’s approach to design and collecting, shedding light on the value we ascribe to everyday objects. Artist, film-maker, architect, activist, collector – whatever mode Ai Weiwei is in, he is trying to tell us something about the state of the world. This book presents Ai’s work as a commentary on design and what it reveals about our changing values. Confronted by the rapid pace of change in his country, Ai became fascinated by Chinese antiquities. His vast collections of historical artefacts, from Stone Age tools to broken teapot spouts, attest to the way the language of objects speaks across the ages. Is this a classic tale of technical progress, or have we lost crucial qualities with the march of time? Ai invites us to make sense of these objects as he explores the tensions between past and present, hand and machine, precious and worthless, construction and destruction.