Ai Weiwei

Urn and paint, Western Han Dynasty (206 BC - 8 AD)

"June 1994" 1994
b/w-print, 121 x 155 cm or 40.5 x 50.7 cm

"White House" 1999
from the series "Finger"
B/W Print, Edition of 10, 51 x 61 cm / 90 x 127 cm

Ayrt is a "game of intelligence", says Ai Weiwei, alluding to his own practice - a body of works over more than the last twenty years in varied media and diverse forms. And to this game, in which he moves freely between cultural and historical sources he devotes himself with the intensity of a child first beginning to make sense of the world, pushing the boundaries of his resources and intelligence to the limit....Social intercourse examined in contemporary history is an issue the artist toyed with in his earlier works such as June (1994), a b/w picture of a young woman hoisting up her skirt in front of the façade of the Forbidden City; Violin (1985), an installation, referring to Duchamp's In Anticipation of a Broken Arm, in which the neck of a violin is substituted with the handle of a shovel; Propaganda Poster (1993), where Ai retouched a government propaganda poster against the use of firecrackers; Study of Perspective (1995-2003), a set of eight photographs dominated by an ever-present close-up of a middle finger raised against worldwide famous political and cultural landmarks such as the Forbidden City, the Reichstag and the White House.
by Nataline Colonnello full text here

Ai Weiwei at Galerie Urs Meile