Hardcover | 33 x 44 cm | 724 pp

Taschen | 2014 | 9783836546591

Text in English, French & German

Packaged in a card case and wrapped in a silk scarf (110 cm x 100 cm, Habotai silk), based on a detail from Ai’s work Straight, a reference to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.

Limited edition of 1000 copies

PLEASE NOTE: This is an ex-display trade sample of Taschen's limited edition of 1000 copies, and as such it is unsigned and unnumbered.

Condition
Ex-display copy in excellent condition.
Slight markings to black outer case - see final images.

Today Ai Weiwei enjoys a reputation far beyond the art world. While his vast social or performance-based interventions and appropriated object-based artworks have secured his place as one of the world’s leading conceptual artists, Ai is equally known as a social media phenomenon, a political activist, and an outspoken champion of free expression in his native China, where he earned an 81-day police detention in 2011.

This book is the first comprehensive monograph on Ai Weiwei’s life and work. Compiled in close collaboration with Ai and with direct access to his own archives, it explores the artist's particular brand of expression and activism over more than 700 pages of images and text.

Features:

Many previously unseen images, from photos taken during Ai’s time in New York to production shots of large installations in the workshop and pictures from his studio.
Essays from Uli Sigg, Ai’s long-time friend and former Swiss ambassador to China; Roger M. Buergel, who curated the 2007 Documenta and hosted the artist’s Fairytale piece; and experts on Chinese culture and politics, Carlos Rojas, William A. Callahan, and James J. Lally.
Numerous statements derived from exclusive interviews with Ai Weiwei, conducted especially for this publication.
Full-page chapter openers designed by the artist in traditional paper-cut style.

Born in Beijing in 1957, Ai Weiwei is renowned for making strong aesthetic statements that resonate across today’s geopolitical world. From architecture to sculpture and installations, social media to documentaries, he uses a wide range of media for new ways of artistically examining society and its values. He is the recipient of the 2015 Ambassador of Conscience Award from Amnesty International and the 2012 Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation. Ai’s first feature-length documentary Human Flow premiered at the 74th Venice Film Festival in competition.

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