Ai Weiwei at Lisson Gallery

Remember a few years ago when we were all asking ‘Where’s Weiwei?’ We’ve finally found him! He’s back in London for his third show at Lisson!

Ai Weiwei’s activism and his 2011 detention by the Chinese state have made him one of the world’s best-known artists; he has become a global celebrity thanks to his political art and his ability to get his message out via the internet. Weiwei is a top conceptual artist who mixes traditional Chinese heritage with the flaws he sees with modern day China — including mass production, pollution and the restriction of freedom of speech. His work was most notably last seen in London when he covered the floor of Tate Modern’s turbine hall with millions of sunflower seeds.

Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing where he lives and works. He attended Beijing Film Academy and later, on moving to New York (1981–1993), continued his studies at the Parsons School of Design. Major solo exhibitions include Martin Gropius Bau (2014), Indianapolis Museum of Art (2013), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C. (2012), Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Taiwan (2011), Tate Modern, London (2010) and Haus der Kunst, Munich (2009). Architectural collaborations include the 2012 Serpentine Pavilion and the 2008 Beijing Olympic Stadium, with Herzog and de Meuron. Among numerous awards and honours, he won the lifetime achievement award from the Chinese Contemporary Art Awards in 2008 and the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation, New York in 2012; he was made Honorary Academician at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2011.

For the show, Weiwei has created a new bicycle installation, part of his ongoing “Forever” series, a monumental sculpture and a magnificent work of geometric engineering which evokes the ubiquitous profusion of pushbikes in Beijing and symbolises a dying breed of daily existence; the rate of bicycle manufacture has diminished due to the rise in cars. Other works recount his period of detention along with personal objects produced in marble, crystal, wood and stainless steel.

‘These are mostly objects that relate to my small world. For example, the “Forever” bicycles were a brand from when I was growing up. In our village there were no real roads and we always had to ride bikes to carry things. I thought they would be good for a public sculpture because people relate to bikes. They’re designed for the body and operated with your body. There are few things today that are like that.’

Ai Weiwei is on at Lisson Gallery, 29 Bell Street, NW1 5DA until 19 July. Entrance is free. Definitely not to be missed.