Ai Weiwei's first design-focused exhibition to showcase the world's largest Lego artwork in London

Ai Weiwei, the celebrated Chinese language artist and activist, is ready to open his first exhibition specializing in design and structure on the Design Museum in London on 6 April. 

Titled "Making Sense," the exhibition will characteristic big site-specific installations, together with 5 expansive "fields" made up of lots of of 1000's of objects collected by the artist for the reason that Nineteen Nineties. 

Amongst these spectacular installations, guests may have the possibility to see Ai Weiwei's "Water Lilies #1", the largest-ever paintings made totally from Lego. 

Constituted of practically 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 colors, the extraordinary piece is a recreation of certainly one of Claude Monet's most well-known work. 

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That is an exhibition focussed on a really particular idea: design. I had to consider how we use the area within the Design Museum as a complete, and the exhibition provides a wealthy expertise of what design is, and the way design pertains to our previous and to our present state of affairs.

Ai Weiwei

Who's Ai Weiwei?

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Chinese language artist Ai Weiwei poses through the presentation of his exhibition "Ai Weiwei: Intertwine" on the Serralves Museum of Up to date Artwork in Porto on July 22, 2021MIGUEL RIOPA/AFP

Ai Weiwei has made a reputation for himself as an artist, architect, designer, filmmaker, and political activist.

Born in Beijing, China, in 1957, his father, Ai Qing, was a poet and certainly one of China’s most well-known modernist writers. Rising up, Ai Weiwei was uncovered to artwork and literature from an early age, and it’s clear that he inherited his father’s inventive expertise.

Within the Seventies, Ai Weiwei moved to the USA and studied on the Parsons Faculty of Design in New York Metropolis. He then went on to review on the Artwork College students League of New York, the place he developed his abilities as an artist.

Within the Nineteen Eighties, Ai Weiwei returned to China and commenced working as an artist and activist. He was a founding member of the avant-garde artwork motion in China, and he rapidly made a reputation for himself as an outspoken critic of the Chinese language authorities.

All through his profession, Ai Weiwei has used his artwork to sort out essential social and political points, by no means being afraid to talk out in opposition to injustice, and his work has usually been controversial.

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"Sunflower Seeds" by Ai WeiweiIna Fassbender/AFP
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Ai Weiwei poses for photographers for the launch of "Sunflower Seeds" on the Tate Fashionable in south London, October 11, 2010.Leon Neal/AFP

Considered one of Ai Weiwei’s most well-known works is his set up, "Sunflower Seeds", which was exhibited on the Tate Fashionable in 2010. The piece consisted of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds, each hand-painted by Chinese language artisans. The set up was a commentary on the mass-production of shopper items in China and the lack of individuality that comes with it.

Ai Weiwei's "Research of Perspective" sequence is one other certainly one of his most recognisable and controversial initiatives. Created over the course of eight years (1995-2003), the sequence options pictures of the artist flipping the chicken in entrance of a number of iconic landmarks worldwide, such because the White Home, the Eiffel Tower, and Tiananmen Sq.. In capturing this provocative gesture utilizing a snapshot aesthetic, Ai Weiwei provides a potent and simple message of political dissent. 

In 2011, he was arrested by the Chinese language authorities on prices of tax evasion, and he was held in detention for 81 days. The incident solely served to extend his profile and produce consideration to the human rights abuses in China.

Ai Weiwei’s artwork continues to encourage and problem us to this present day.

What to anticipate from the London Design Museum exhibition?

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Chinese language artist Ai Weiwei poses in entrance of his artwork at "Ai Weiwei: Making Sense" on the London Design MuseumJustinTallis/AFP

On the coronary heart of the exhibition are a sequence of main site-specific installations. 

A whole lot of 1000's of objects are laid out on the ground of the gallery in a sequence of 5 expansive 'fields.' 

These objects, from Stone Age instruments to Lego bricks, have been collected collectively by Ai Weiwei for the reason that Nineteen Nineties and are the results of his ongoing fascination with artefacts and conventional craftsmanship.

For instance, his piece "Nonetheless Life" options 1,600 instruments relationship from the late Stone Age, laid side-by-side, appearing as a reminder that the origins of design are rooted in survival. 

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I’m proud that the Design Museum is the primary establishment to border the work of Ai Weiwei by the lens of structure and design and to collaborate in new methods with one of many nice inventive forces of the twenty first century up to now.

Tim Marlow

Director and CEO of the Design Museum

However, "Left Proper Studio Materials" consists of 1000's of fragments of the stays of Ai's porcelain sculptures that had been destroyed when his 'Left Proper' studio in Beijing was demolished by the Chinese language state in 2018. 

The stays are a type of proof of the repression that Ai has suffered by the hands of the Chinese language authorities, in addition to a testomony to his means to show destruction into artwork.

Kin Cheung/AP Photo
Ai Weiwei poses for a photograph at his exhibition "Making Sense" on the Design Museum, in London, Tuesday, April 4, 2023Kin Cheung/AP Photograph

One other fascinating work is "Spouts," that includes round 200,000 porcelain spouts from teapots and wine ewers crafted by hand through the Music dynasty. The amount bears witness to the size of porcelain manufacturing in China a thousand years in the past. 

Alongside these fields, dozens of objects and artworks from all through Ai Weiwei's profession discover the tensions between previous and current, hand and machine, valuable and nugatory, building, and destruction.

The exhibition additionally consists of works that reference the Covid-19 pandemic, which uncovered our dependence on humble issues. On show are three rest room paper sculptures: two life-size rolls (one in marble and one in glass) in addition to a 2-metre-long sculpture in marble, displayed for the primary time.

The world's largest lego paintings

Photo Credit: Ela Bialkowska/ OKNO studio
Ai Weiwei: Water Lilies #1. Lego BricksPhotograph Credit score: Ela Bialkowska/ OKNO studio

Undoubtedly, one of many primary highlights of the exhibition is Ai Weiwei's "Water Lilies #1", which has been hailed as the most important Lego paintings on the planet. 

The piece is a surprising recreation of some of the well-known work by French Impressionist Claude Monet and challenges our preconceptions of actuality and wonder.

Composed of practically 650,000 Lego bricks in 22 totally different colors, the paintings stretches over 15 meters in size. 

Justin McGuirk, Chief Curator on the Design Museum and the curator of Ai Weiwei: Making Sense, described the work as "monumental, advanced and highly effective", and expressed pleasure in being the primary museum to exhibit it.

"With out a private narrative, inventive narration loses its high quality. In Water Lilies #1, I combine Monet's Impressionist portray and concrete experiences of my father and me right into a digitised and pixelated language," explains Ai Weiwei. 

'Ai Weiwei: Making Sense" is open from 7 April to 30 July 2023 on the Design Museum in London.

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