Biography

Ai Weiwei

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Ai Weiwei is renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena across today's geopolitical world. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai uses a wide range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine society and its values. Recent exhibitions include: Ai Weiwei: Resetting Memories at MARCO in Monterrey, Ai Weiwei: Bare Life at the Mildred Lane Kemper Museum in St. Louis, Ai Weiwei at the K20/K21 in Dusseldorf, and Good Fences Make Good Neighbors with the Public Art Fund in New York City.

Ai was born in Beijing in 1957 and currently resides and works in Berlin. Ai is the recipient of the 2015 Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation.
- IMDb mini biography by: AWW Germany GmbH 21.08.20

Lived in the US from 1981 to 1993.
Son of poet Ai Quing (1910-1996).
From 1978 attended the Beijing Film Academy with Kaige Chen and Yimou Zhang.
One of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World. (2012).
Being one of China's leading artists and architectural designers, he was the artistic consultant for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics, also known as the "Bird's Nest".

What surprises me is that this society, which is developing at such a rapid rate today, still has the most barbaric and backward legal system. I think it's a bad omen.
The American experience influenced my understanding of individuality, basic human rights, freedom of expression and the rights and responsibilities of citizens.
On June 22 [2012], the end date of my one year period of probation, the police told me, 'Your case is closed. You're a free man. We have nothing to charge you with because you behaved very well this year', which I admit was a surprise. I think I violated very rule they set, but you can see their attitude was to be finished. Maybe it became clear to them that we are not an agent of any foreign interest group that wanted to subvert state power.
For me, I think the most important freedom is to think freely. That is essential for a human being and also a very basic right that everybody should have. It doesn't matter what country or what political system you live in. In China we are far behind. We don't have the very basic right to vote, we have no way to express ourselves through media. We cannot really participate in any kind of political discussions or show our opinions to influence any social-political decision-making. That means we don't have very essential conditions for individuals or citizens to be free.
There is no outdoor sport as graceful as throwing stones at a dictatorship.

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