PBS Announces new season of Art21′s Art in the Twenty-First Century, featuring profile of Ai Weiwei

PASADENA, CA.- PBS announced today that ART IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, the Peabody Award-winning biennial series that presents exclusive documentary profiles of the top contemporary artists working today, will return with a sixth season airing Fridays, April 13, 20, 27 and May 4, 2012, 9:00 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings). The premiere episode, “Change,” features a profile of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist arrested by government officials last year. The segment includes one of the first on-camera interviews he [...]

After visiting Ai Weiwei exhibition, Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou calls for artistic freedom in China

TAIPEI (AP).- Taiwan’s president urged China on Friday to respect the artistic freedom of outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained for nearly three months earlier this year and is currently confined to Beijing. “He’s an artist and should have the freedom to express his artistic views,” President Ma Ying-jeou said after viewing Ai’s exhibition at a Taipei museum. “This is also the core value of Taiwan.” Ma said he deplored that Chinese police detained Ai at the Beijing airport [...]

Louisiana Museum of Modern Art shows three large, striking works by Ai Weiwei

HUMLEBAEK.- Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, as planned, opened an exhibition dedicated to Ai Weiwei with a number of the Chinese artist’s works from the years 2003-2010 – despite the authorities’ detention and isolation of the artist for several months earlier in the year. Ai Weiwei (b. 1957) has to a rare degree alternated in his practice between traditional physical artworks, conceptual projects, social activities, design and architecture. This has given his oeuvre the character of a compass that registers the [...]

Berlin’s Martin-Gropius-Bau presents more than 200 photographs of Ai Weiwei in New York

BERLIN.- For the first time in Germany, the Martin-Gropius-Bau is showing more than 220 photographs from the period 1983 to 1993 spent by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in New York. More than 10,000 photos emerged during this time. Ai acted as curator selecting what will be exhibited. For the young Ai, born in 1957, this extended period of stay in the USA was very influential on the style of his future artistic works. After being in New York, Ai first of all returned [...]

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei wins fans in L.A. with Los Angeles County Museum of Art exhibition

LOS ANGELES (REUTERS).- Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is living a heavily restricted life in Beijing after being released from detention earlier this year, but his work is speaking volumes to people in the second-largest U.S. city. Ai’s touring installation, “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads,” opened two weeks ago at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and has been introducing people here to the work of a man about whom, until recently, they may have only read about in headlines telling [...]

China dissident Ai Weiwei launches scathing attack on the Chinese government

BEIJING (REUTERS).- Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has launched his first scathing attack on the Chinese government since his release from secretive detention in late June, accusing officials of denying citizens their basic rights. In a strongly worded commentary published late on Sunday on the website of Newsweek magazine, Ai — whose detention sparked an international outcry — said the capital Beijing was “a city of violence.” He criticized the government for rampant corruption, the judicial system and its policy on migrant workers [...]

Controversy Follows Conviction of Artist Odd Nerdrum for Alleged Tax Fraud

OSLO.- The Norwegian artist, Odd Nerdrum, was sentenced to two years in prison without bail on Wednesday August 17th, when a local court in Oslo found him guilty for tax evasion. Critics claim that Nerdrum’s sentence was surprisingly more severe than the punishment recently imposed in a similar case in China concerning the artist Ai Weiwei, who was given a fine and released on house arrest after three months of detainment. Nerdrum has plead not guilty and will file an appeal. [...]

‘Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs’ Exhibition Opens at the Asia Society Museu

NEW YORK, NY.- Asia Society Museum presents an exhibition of 227 photographs taken by Ai Weiwei, capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of 1980s New York from his unique perspective. The exhibition marks the first time Ai Weiwei’s New York Photographs series is being shown outside of China. Before Ai Weiwei became internationally recognized as an artist and activist, he lived in a tiny apartment in New York’s East Village, and was a prominent member of a community of expatriate [...]

Released Chinese Artist-Activist Ai Weiwei’s Associates Freed After Ai’s Release

BEIJING (REUTERS).- Four associates of Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei detained along with him in a controversial case were freed after Ai’s release, friends of the artist said on Saturday. The four included journalist Wen Tao, detained along with Ai in early April when the two were at Beijing airport heading to Hong Kong, said Liu Yanping, a volunteer worker involved in Ai’s campaigning on rights issues. “All of the people connected to the case have been released,” Liu told Reuters [...]

Fotomuseum Winterthur Opens Major Exhibition of Photographs and Videos by Ai Weiwei

WINTERTHUR.- Ai Weiwei – Interlacing is the first major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei. It foregrounds Ai Weiwei the communicator – the documenting, analyzing, interweaving artist who communicates via many channels. Ai Weiwei already used photography in his New York years, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has incessantly documented the everyday urban and social realities in China, discussing it over blogs and Twitter. Photographs of radical urban transformation, of the search for earthquake victims, [...]

Many Artists at ART HK International Art Fair Revel in Freedom to Support Ai Weiwei

HONG KONG (REUTERS).- Ai Weiwei may be languishing in Chinese detention, but the influence of the prominent artist and social activist has permeated Hong Kong’s burgeoning art scene, from glitzy art fairs to edgy street art. The cavernous halls of the ART HK International art fair straddling the iconic harbor are filled with a blitz of works, from the nature-inspired art of Iceland’s Olafur Eliasson to male nude photographs by Zhang Huan. But tucked inside one of nearly 300 galleries [...]

Thousands March in Hong Kong to Demand the Release of Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei

HONG KONG (REUTERS).- Over one thousand protesters in Hong Kong took to the streets to demand the release of detained Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei on Saturday, scuffling briefly with police. The rally — the largest in a string of protests across the city in recent weeks — has underscored Hong Kong’s growing role as a hotbed of support for Ai with local pro-democracy activists and artists ratcheting up pressure on Beijing over its heavy crackdown on [...]

Tate Modern’s “Sunflower Seed” Exhibit by Ai Weiwei Closed to Visitors as Health Risk

LONDON (AP).- An art exhibition involving 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds has been closed to visitors because it is generating dust that is a potential health hazard, the Tate Modern gallery said Friday. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei filled a giant hall at the London gallery with a 1,000 sq. meter (10,000 sq. foot) carpet of the imitation seeds, hand-crafted by thousands of artisans in China over a two-year period. Visitors were invited to walk across the surface when the show [...]

U.S. Collector and Gallery Owner Larry Gagosian Tops 2010 Art Review Power List

LONDON (REUTERS).- U.S. collector and gallery owner Larry Gagosian has been named the art world’s most powerful figure in the annual ArtReview ranking, dominated this year by established commercial galleries. File photo of US art dealer Larry Gagosian (R) and Rome’s Mayor Walter Veltroni Gagosian has nine galleries around the world after opening a new space in Paris, as well as an office in Hong Kong and a shop in New York. He reclaims the position he held in 2004, [...]

Ai Weiwei Presents New Commission in The Unilever Series at Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall

LONDON.- Tate and Unilever today presented Chinese artist Ai Weiwei´s commission in The Unilever Series for the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern (12 October 2010 – 25 April 2011). He is the first artist living and working in the Asia-Pacific region to be commissioned for the series. Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei is one of the most prominent and influential figures in Chinese art today. In his many roles as conceptual artist, curator, critic, designer and architect, his [...]

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