Ai Weiwei's major retrospective in Seattle is a timely and provocative exploration of human rights

This spring, the Seattle Art Museum hosts a moveable feast of Ai Weiwei, presenting for the first time the work of one artist across all three locations.

Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei is at the Seattle Art Museum until September 7th. The artist’s first US retrospective in over a decade, it is his largest-ever exhibition in the US features over 130 works created over four decades, from the 1980s to the 2020s.

The Chinese dissident artist and activist’s largest and most ambitious LEGO work to date, Water Lilies (2022), will be on view at the Seattle Asian Art Museum for one year beginning March 19^th while a collection of twelve monumental animal heads representing the Chinese zodiac, Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Bronze) (2010), will be installed at Olympic Sculpture Park for a two-year period beginning May 17^th.

FOONG Ping, exhibition curator and SAM’s Foster Foundation Curator of Chinese Art notes, 'Presenting Ai Weiwei’s work at all three SAM locations is incredibly ambitious, and we are thrilled and inspired by the challenge.'

She adds, 'Each of SAM’s locations is uniquely suited to showcase his diverse body of work, which ranges from the intimate to the monumental. Few artists could integrate into our spaces so effortlessly. It’s been a delight and honour to collaborate with Ai in developing this fresh look at his life’s work.'

One journalist asked at a press conference/preview event last week, 'Why the Seattle Art Museum?' to which the artist replied, 'Why not?'

But upon reflection, Seattle with its mix of activism and capitalism (entering the city from the airport road visitors are greeted by a glowing Starbucks logo atop its HQ) and a well-funded cultural scene may be the perfect venue for Ai Weiwei. The city also has a long history of and a growing importance as a centre for Asian art. In fact, its first incarnation in the lovely 1933 Art Deco building that is currently home to the Seattle Asian Art Museum (which opened as such in 1994), was established by founding patrons Richard E. Fuller, and his mother, Mrs. Margaret E. MacTavish Fuller, whose significant collection of Asian Art was part of the permanent collection.

The main collection moved downtown in 1991 to a purposed built building designed by Robert Venturi. The Olympic Sculpture Park, designed by Weiss/Manfredi Architects opened in 2007 in a repurposed industrial waterfront site near Belltown that became one of the only downtown greenspaces. Here Wei Wei’s Zodiac series will become an interesting juxtaposition between Richard Serra’s 2004 weathering steel work Wake and Alexander Calder’s iconic 1971 The Eagle in red painted sheet steel that dialogues with freighters in the harbour.

The Ai/Rebel retrospective documents Weiwei’s transformation from a young artist hanging out in New York’s lower eastside to his detention by Chinese authorities to his status as an international art world star. Featuring some of the artist’s best known works, including Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn (1995), Study of Perspective (1995-2011), Sunflower Seeds (2010), Neolithic Vase with Coca Cola Logo (gold) (2015), and Illumination (2019, 2024 exhibition copy), it also boasts the debut of new works never shown in the US. These include Marble Sofa (2011), a carving of an ordinary leather sofa, part of a series that transforms everyday objects by monumentalizing them.

Meanwhile new Trumpian realities lend a timeliness to Weiwei’s provocative exploration of issues around human rights, freedom of expression and authoritarianism encompassing performance, photography, sculpture, video, and immersive installation.

Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei is at the Seattle Art Museum until September 7th

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