Some Ai Weiwei art will be lost to wrecking ball, artist’s assistant says as demolition work on his Beijing studio continues

Exiled artist’s staff say they won’t have time to pack up and move all the works stored at his studio in a former factory on the outskirts of Beijing, where pending demolition work began without warning late last week

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Some of the art in Ai Weiwei's studio in Beijing is packed and awaiting removal as demolition work on the building continues. Photo: Elaine Yau

Published: 6:18pm, 6 Aug 2018Updated: 6:53pm, 6 Aug 2018

Some of the works Ai Weiwei had stored at his Beijing studio would not escape the wrecking ball, an assistant to the dissident Chinese artist said on Monday, three days after demolition crews began tearing it down.

Ai’s staff were racing against the clock to save what they could of the works at the exiled artist’s studio in the Zuo You Arts Compound on the outskirts of the Chinese capital, where dozens of buildings on a 4,000 square metre site have been reduced to rubble. The front gates of some buildings are plastered with eviction notices.

“We will preserve whatever we can,” said the assistant, Xia Xiang. “We just try to save as many as possible. Moving them needs preparation. We have to pack them up; it takes time.

“For those artworks which we don’t have enough time to pack up, there's nothing we can do.”

Xia Xiang (left) and another of Ai Weiwei’s assistants, Garang, at the artist’s studio, a former factory on the outskirts of Beijing. Packing cases for Ai artworks stored there can be seen behind them. Photo: Elaine Yau

Another assistant who works for Ai said staff were looking for suitable places to store the artworks saved. “Ai only has one [warehouse] in Beijing to store his artworks. There are no other places. Since we start operating here in 2006, no one has come here to disturb us before,” this assistant said.