Ai Weiwei (b. 1957, Beijing) is renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate with timely phenomena across today’s geopolitical world. From architecture to installations, social media to documentaries, Ai uses a wide range of mediums as expressions of new ways for his audiences to examine society and its values. Ai is the recipient of the Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International and the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation. His work is the subject of numerous art monographs and exhibition catalogs, and he is the author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: Two Lives, One Nation and a Century of Art Under Tyranny in China.
