Ai Weiwei

"It is the world’s artists, particularly those courageous enough to stand up against authoritarianism, for whom we need to be concerned, and for whose safety we must fight."
-Writer Salman Rushdie on Ai WeiWei's arrest by the Chinese Government, in the New York Times OpEd column.

ACTIVE BACKLIST

AI WEIWEI: ART, ARCHITECTURE
Edited by Yilmaz Dziewior. Foreword by Yilmaz Dziewior. Text by Andres Lepik, Reto Geiser.
KUNSTHAUS BREGENZ
ISBN: 9783863350413 | US $65.00
Pub Date: 10/15/2011
Active | In stock

AI WEIWEI: NEW YORK PHOTOGRAPHS 1983-1993
THREE SHADOWS PRESS LIMITIED
ISBN: 9789889966782 | US $125.00
Pub Date: 1/31/2012
Active | In stock

AI WEIWEI: FAIRYTALE
JRP|RINGIER
ISBN: 9783037641538 | US $35.00
Pub Date: 1/31/2011
Active | In stock

AI WEIWEI: WORKS 2004-2007
Edited by Urs Meile, Peter Pakesch, Ai Weiwei. Text by Philip Tinari, Charles Merewether.
JRP|RINGIER
ISBN: 9783905829273 | US $39.00
Pub Date: 8/1/2008
Active | In stock

AI WEIWEI: FRAGMENTS BEIJING 2006
Edited by Ai Weiwei, Chen Weiqing.
BLUE KINGFISHER
ISBN: 9789889901530 | US $25.00
Pub Date: 4/1/2007
Active | Awaiting stock

AI WEIWEI: BEIJING 10/2003
Edited by Ai Weiwei.
BLUE KINGFISHER
ISBN: 9789889726218 | US $50.00
Pub Date: 3/15/2005
Active | Awaiting stock

OUT OF PRINT LISTING

AI WEIWEI: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES PRESS/ SCAF/CAC, SYDNEY
ISBN: 9781921410734 | US $45.00
Pub Date: 4/1/2009
Out of Print | Not available

AI WEIWEI: BEIJING, VENICE, LONDON, HERZOG & DE MEURON
Text by Charles Merewether, Aaron Betsky. Interview by Jacques Herzog.
WALTHER KöNIG
ISBN: 9781900829281 | US $185.00
Pub Date: 2/1/2009
Out of print | Not available

AI WEIWEI: WORKS BEIJING 1993-2003
Edited by Charles Merewether. Essays by Jonathan Napack and Chin-Chin Yap.
BLUE KINGFISHER
ISBN: 9789889726287 | US $40.00
Pub Date: 8/2/2004
Out of print | Not available

Ai Weiwei

ARTBOOK | D.A.P. joins other major arts and media organizations in calling for the immediate release of artist Ai WeiWei by the Chinese Government. Please visit the links below for more information.

Salman Rushdie's OpEd in the NYTimes, "Dangerous Arts".

The Guggenheim's online petition calling for Ai Weiwei's release.

"1,001 Chairs for Ai Weiwei" Protesters Wouldn't Stand For Chinese Oppression, on ARTINFO.

Ai WeiWei's TED film on the TED blog.

MIT Press' fantastic new book, Ai WeiWei's Blog.

"Ai Weiwei, Chinese Dissident Artist, Speaks To 'Dan Rather Reports' Just Before Disappearance" (Video on Huffington Post).

"Ai Weiwei arrest" on the London's Guardian.

Ai Weiwei: Art, Architecture

Edited by Yilmaz Dziewior. Foreword by Yilmaz Dziewior. Text by Andres Lepik, Reto Geiser.
Published by Kunsthaus Bregenz

Since constructing his own studio in 1999, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has designed or collaborated with other architects on a wide range of architectural projects. These collaborations were the subject of Ai Weiwei: Art/Architecture, a 2011 exhibition at the Kunsthaus Bregenz in Austria, which this catalogue accompanies. A highlight of this overview is the widely celebrated “Bird’s Nest” Beijing National Stadium, a collaboration between Ai and the Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron that was constructed for the 2008 Olympic Games. Another feature is a new work based on a project titled “Ordos 10” for which Ai invited 100 young architectural firms worldwide to design single-family houses for Ordos City in Inner Mongolia. An essay in the catalogue examines the role of architecture in relation to Ai’s political activities, an issue of particular relevance since his arrest and conditional release in 2011.

Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993

Edited by Mao Weidong, Stephanie H. Tung, John Tancock, Christophe Mao. Introduction by RongRong, Christophe Mao. Text by John Tancock, Stephanie H. Tung. Interview by Stephanie H. Tung, Alison Klayman.
Published by Three Shadows Press Limitied

This selection of 227 photographs taken by Ai Weiwei (born 1957) during his early years living on New York City’s Lower East Side between 1983 and 1993, provides invaluable insights into the formative years of China’s most celebrated and controversial contemporary artist. The photographs document Ai Weiwei’s own development as an artist and public figure in New York, as well as the transformation of the East Village from a desolate scene of urban blight into a desirable residential neighborhood, also capturing along the way significant events such as the Tompkins Square Park riots and the AIDS epidemic. Over four years in preparation, and published here for the first time, these photographs are edited and digitized from a massive trove of more than 10,000 photographs from Ai Weiwei’s New York years, and collectively constitute a visual autobiography of this formative period in his life.

Ai Weiwei: Fairytale

Documentary DVD

Published by JRP|Ringier

A documentary film by internationally acclaimed Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (born 1957), Fairytale chronicles the making of an installation-cum-performance of the same name. In 2007, Ai Weiwei invited 1001 Chinese citizens of varying ages and backgrounds to travel to Kassel, Germany, for one week each, all expenses paid. This 152-minute film describes the many challenges facing the artist and his volunteers in coordinating the work.

Ai Weiwei: Under Construction

Edited by Laura Murray Cree. Preface by Gene Sherman. Introduction by Lisa Havilah. Text by Charles Merewether.
Published by University of New South Wales Press/ SCAF/CAC, Sydney

This scholarly exhibition catalogue explores the ways in which renowned Chinese Conceptualist Ai Weiwei raises questions about cultural violence and history. The work is looked at in the context of a country where future possibilities are shaped by the opposing forces of ruin and production, patrimony and erasure--the logic of ruins in reverse.

Ai Weiwei: Beijing, Venice, London, Herzog & de Meuron

Text by Charles Merewether, Aaron Betsky. Interview by Jacques Herzog.
Published by Walther König

Describing "The Bird's Nest," the "intoxicatingly" beautiful stadium built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics by Basel-based architects Herzog & de Meuron in collaboration with Chinese Conceptual artist Ai Weiwei, The New York Times' Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote, "The crisscrossing columns create a Piranesian world of dark corners and odd leftover spaces--an effect that intensifies as you ascend through the structure. Light filters through the translucent roof panels, and a network of drainpipes suspended from the roof adds a tough, utilitarian feel. The feverish play of light and shadows is reminiscent of the set for a German Expressionist film. From your seat, you gaze out at the surrounding skyline, where rows of generic housing towers seem to extend to eternity." This large-format, two-volume set features one book on the construction of the stadium from 2005 to 2008, and another that presents The 24 Hour Series, a sequence of photographs taken of the stadium by Ai Weiwei once an hour for one day and night. Also featured are the major installation created by the artist and architects for the 2008 Venice Biennale of Architecture and related works produced for an exhibition in London in the autumn of 2008.

Ai Weiwei: Works 2004-2007

Edited by Urs Meile, Peter Pakesch, Ai Weiwei. Text by Philip Tinari, Charles Merewether.
Published by JRP|Ringier

Since 1993, Beijing-based Ai Weiwei has created a cohesive body of work in the various guises of artist, architect, curator, writer and critic. This overview, an in-depth reflection on the artist's most vibrant and celebrated projects, features works from 2004-2007--including installation projects, objects and videos. Focusing on thematic topics, materials and media, it includes screenshots from Ai's influential blog, as well as a discussion of his infamous social sculpture "Fairytale," which debuted at 2007's Documenta 12, inviting 1,001 Chinese citizens to participate in hopes of finding, "a way to bring China's current social condition to Kassel and thus allow Westerners to view a sample of modern Chinese society." Ai's most recent wood and porcelain series is also featured here, positing a new understanding of traditional Chinese forms, aesthetics and production. This publication includes texts by Charles Merewether, Peter Pakesch and Philip Tinari.
The son of the famous Chinese poet Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei was born in 1957 in Beijing. He collaborated with the Swiss architectural firm Herzog & de Meuron on the design for the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Ai Weiwei: Fragments Beijing 2006

Edited by Ai Weiwei, Chen Weiqing.
Published by Blue Kingfisher

This book covers a recent sculptural installation by the Chinese artist, architect and radical intellectual, Ai Weiwei--who is currently being watched the world over for his work on China's 2008 Olympic Stadium, designed in collaboration with the Swiss Architects, Herzog & de Meuron. Fragments depicts a mysterious large-scale sculpture that hybridizes architectural elements from several Chinese temples. "Each architectural element in a temple has a precise order. The fragments in my installation are from three or four temples, so everything is wrongly connected and misfit. They serve no purpose to each other, and the whole structure serves no purpose at all. At the beginning, many of my carpenters quit, despite the fact that I paid them a high salary and never rushed them. They quit because they didn't know what their job was for--why the table needed to be cut a certain way, or why the patina should be kept and joints hidden.

Ai Weiwei: Beijing 10/2003

Edited by Ai Weiwei.
Published by Blue Kingfisher

No temples, no palaces, no Mao badges, just the qualities of narrow spaces, congested streets, unremarkable buildings, changes in weather: everyday Beijing. This 880-page, gray brick-shaped, hardcover artist's book comprises 1720 color video stills, captured at five-minute intervals, from a 150-hour-long video work made by Ai Weiwei in October 2003. Shot through the windshield of a moving vehicle traveling every road inside the Fourth Ring Road in Beijing, the work documents the interstitial spaces in Beijing and reflects on time, location, behavior and change in Beijing. Also included are the maps used to make the road video.

Ai Weiwei: Works Beijing 1993-2003

Edited by Charles Merewether. Essays by Jonathan Napack and Chin-Chin Yap.
Published by Blue Kingfisher

For artists and intellectuals today, what is most needed is to be clear about social responsibility.... You don't have to march on Tiananmen, but you have to be clear-minded, to find your own way of expression.... The bottom line is that you are an individual person; while you are here you'd better be yourself and speak what you think is right. In China we have a saying that goes: You're in a valley and overhead between the cliffs you see a white horse jump over the gap. That's life. It could be a few concepts or moments in which you live that have no meaning to others.
--Ai Weiwei

Conceptual artist, publisher and architect Ai Weiwei returned to his native Beijing in 1993, where he set upon creating the daring, surrealist sculptures and performances documented here. From his smashing of a Han dynasty urn to his wonky deconstructions of Qing dynasty tables, Weiwei ruptures notions of historicity and respect. And then there's his 6-meter-high “Chandelier” and his series of snapshots of his own hand (presumably) giving the finger to a world of monuments, from Tiananmen Square to the Eiffel Tower, from the White House to the Reichstag.