The first of the artist’s long-running series, Ai Weiwei’s Forever of 2003 is a powerful and introspective work encapsulating the artist’s central themes of cultural change and loss in rapid modernization of China. Since the inception of the Forever bicycle installation series in 2003, Ai Weiwei has experimented with different numbers and configurations of the bicycles. Two exhibitions in Toronto in 2013 included 3,144 bicycles, and in the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, an installation of 1,179 bicycles were laid out in a tunnel-like structure. Now scattered all around the world in an ever-increasing scale, the present work marks the beginning of a seminal series in the artist’s prolific oeuvre.

The towering circular sculpture is created by dismantling forty-two Yongjiu bicycles, a household Chinese bicycle brand which translates to Forever. The company began producing bicycles in Shanghai in 1940, and has since then become the leading manufacturer in the country. Bicycles are part of everyday life in China, their presence ubiquitous across streets and alleyways. However, with the rapid modernisation in recent years, these ‘Forever’ brand bicycles have been slowly disappearing from the streets. The most common form of transportation, bicycles are part of the lived experience of everyday Chinese people, and are also symbolic of the peasant revolution and socialist utopia that has never been achieved. Increasingly replaced by motorcycles or cars, a tinge of nostalgia accompanies the irony of the word ‘forever’. Playfully arranged in a carousel, these fragments of bicycles speak of continuity and change, tradition and revolution. Plain, humble and deeply poetic, Ai Weiwei captures a sense of loss that pervades the rapidly changing streets of China.

The present work also recalls Marcel Duchamp and his ‘readymades', particularly his Bicycle Wheel. Taking its name from the mass-manufactured products of the United States in the 1900s, Duchamp challenges what can constitute a work of art. In dismantling the bicycles and emptying them of their functionality, Ai Weiwei transforms an object of daily Chinese life into a part of a grand choreography of abstraction. Both in their use of found objects and also in his provocative, iconoclastic practice, Ai Weiwei follows in the footsteps of the icon, placing himself within the international art historical discourse whilst remaining firmly grounded in his own identity.

One of the most controversial artists of the generation, Ai Weiwei’s unapologetic criticisms towards the Chinese government and their policies has led him to numerous clashes with the government. Forever captures the essence of modern Chinese society and the subdued sadness of fleeting history under the face of significant societal change. Using symbolically rich Chinese objects, whether readymades or antiques, the artist adopts critical perspectives on cultural authority that address the different kinds of significance that objects accrue – be they cultural, historical, or monetary – to create a dialogue wherein these issues are not only animated but problematised.