Book review: Ai Weiwei’s provocative career is captured in a mammoth Taschen tome
China’s most famous living artist has endured surveillance, persecution and sometimes imprisonment, but his work has grown ever more vital and important despite – or perhaps because of – the state’s disapproval
edited by Hans Werner Holzwarth
Taschen
4/5 stars
Despite – or perhaps because of – the Communist Party’s best efforts to have him silenced, Ai Weiwei remains the most famous and influential Chinese artist alive today.
Ai, who helped design the National Stadium for the Beijing Olympics in 2008, spectacularly fell out of favour with China’s rulers for launching a “citizen’s investigation” after the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, but in the years since his star has risen internationally, with large-scale exhibitions at galleries in cities such as London, San Francisco, Berlin and Melbourne.