Ai Weiwei

Private Collection, Europe

Charles Merewether, Ed., Ai Weiwei Works: Beijing 1993-2003, Beijing 2003, p. 73, illustration of another example

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. There is a minute indentation 1cm below the centre right of the top edge, only visible under raking light.
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Son of a revolutionary poet exiled during the Cultural Revolution, Ai Weiwei grew up in New York and studied at Parsons School of Design where he developed an interest in the work of Duchamp, Warhol and Johns. Upon returning to Beijing, he was one of the founders of the Stars Group: the first Avant-Garde movement to appear in Beijing in the end of the 70's and the 'first group to have exhibitions with art works related to private feelings rather than propaganda art.' (the artist cited in: Exhibition Catalogue, Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, China Welcomes You...,2007, p. 35).

Operating on all fronts of the cultural scene as a conceptual artist, curator, writer and architect, Weiwei has become one of the most influential figure's in Chinese contemporary art relentlessly carrying out his own personal endeavours from the founding of the 'China Art Archives & warehouse', and the much acclaimed 'Fuck off (Uncooperative)' exhibition held in Shanghai in 2000 to the displacement of 1001 Chinese citizen to Kassel during the last Dokumenta XII and his highly acclaimed collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron on the design of China's National stadium.

Untitled 1997 is an important example of the artist's performance-based body of work. Showing a young woman provocatively lifting up her skirt in Tiananmen Square under the gaze of Mao's subdued yet compassionate portrait, it embodies his fascination with contradicting statements and provides a metaphor for the hopes and aspirations of Chinese contemporary society. "I like that: order and disorder at the same time. It's a wonderful visual experience." (ibid., p. 39)