Factbox: Who is Ai Weiwei?

4 Apr 2011, 2:42 pm   -   Source: SBS Staff
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Weiwei smashing a vase in part of a series of photos. (APN)

Weiwei smashing a vase in part of a series of photos. (APN)

Chinese artist Weiwei, detained by authorities in the country, has recently upped his criticism of the government in Beijing.


- Chinese artist Weiwei has become increasingly well-known outside of China in recent years, not least after his help in designing the Beijing 'Bird's Nest' Olympic stadium - but also boycotting the opening ceremony in protest at his country's human rights record.

- He was born in Beijing in 1957, the son of parents who had been sent to a Labour camp due to his poet father's political leanings.

- Weiwei studied at the Beijing Film Academy. Throughout the 1980s, he lived in New York, and it was here that he began to use conceptual art using ready made objects.

- Later, on his return to China, Weiwei became a founding member of the Xing Xing Group which held freedom of thought and expression as a key principle. In later years, this would lead him into trouble with the ruling communist Party in Beijing.

- Weiwei's art - on top of his many architectural endeavours, has been exhibited all over the West, as well as Japan and Korea, Brazil and Israel. In 2010, his work 'Sunflower Seeds' turned heads when it filled the Tate Modern's huge Turbine Hall in London. He had one hundred million hand-painted porcelain 'seeds' fill the huge space, with the public invited to walk over the work in a comment on mass-consumerism.

- Weiwei has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government, being heavily involved in uncovering scandals within the country. He has recently kept an account of detentions which have spiraled since February, after calls for protests in the country began to increase in the wake of uprisings in the Arab world.

- He has been banned from traveling in the past and is reportedly planning to open a studio in Berlin, Germany, saying recently that he would have no choice but to work outside China 'if my work and life are somehow threatened.'

- Wewei is an avid internet user and communicator, and currently has over 72,000 Twitter followers. Since his arrest, assistants have updated his followers with the little information they have.

 

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