Welcome to One Fine Show, where Observer highlights a recently opened exhibition at a museum not in New York City, a place we know and love that already receives plenty of attention.
In 2016, my primary income came from articles about fancy parties, which I would attend and write about in a humorous fashion. That job, such as it was, became much easier if the parties’ attendees would give me funny quotes, so I became skilled at generating these.
That fall, I happened to encounter Ai Weiwei at such a party and felt like I’d hit the jackpot. I could ask him his thoughts about the American election, which had already been very stupid. I felt confident that whatever he would have to say about it should be amusing, but he outplayed me. He responded in a thick Chinese accent and broken English that he hadn’t heard much about that election, which was impossible, and expressed vague support for “the woman” who had been one of the world’s most famous politicians for decades. You can’t prank a prankster.
Not only does Ai speak perfect English, but politics are his chief concern, which will become apparent to anyone who visits “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei,” a new survey by the Seattle Art Museum that is the artist’s largest ever exhibition in the United States. The show features over 130 works that span the mediums of performance, photography, sculpture, video and installation, with works originating from the 1980s through to the present day, with many of the works making their international debut, among them The Cover Page of the Mueller Report, Submitted to Attorney General William Barr by Robert Mueller on March 22, 2019 (2019), which recreates its subject in LEGO.
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Also on view are his classic Sunflower Seeds (2010), which are, for me, his best work. These were initially commissioned for the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in an edition of 100 million. From afar, they look just like real sunflower seeds, but were in fact handmade from porcelain in small Jingdezhen workshops, by hundreds of workers. These represent an unprecedented development in the fields of both sculpture and performance, regardless of how you feel about the Chinese government. Another hit from this era is Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Gold) (2010), which takes the twelve animals of the Chinese Zodiac and turns them so that they face each other. Here, Ai is a stern pet owner, forcing a confrontation between his domestic creatures until they agree to get along.
My encounter with Ai in New York wasn’t so strange since he’s always been itinerant and has spent much time here, as documented in the photos of this show. Here he is at Wigstock, protesting in Tompkins Square Park and posing with the work of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) at the Museum of Modern Art. His extensive self-portraiture might seem a little narcissistic, but look to Double Bicycle (2003), Forever Bicycles (2003), which is composed of forty-two of them, or any of his found sculptures. These invoke Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1951) and attempt to imply that Ai is some kind of Super Duchamp, times forty-two. His self-surveillance is meant to double his own life in the place of those of other immigrants who have found themselves on the wrong side of governments. There are only going to be more of those in the future, and this show will serve as a strong and timely introduction to anyone unfamiliar with Ai’s work.
“Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei” is on view at the Seattle Art Museum through September 7, 2025.
