Art News

First major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei opens at Jeu de Paume

PARIS.- “Ai Weiwei – Interlacing” is the first major exhibition of photographs and videos by Ai Weiwei. It foregrounds Ai Weiwei the communicator – the documenting, analyzing, interweaving artist who communicates via many channels. Ai Weiwei already used photography in his New York years, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has incessantly documented the everyday urban and social realities in China, discussing it over blogs and Twitter. Photographs of radical urban transformation, of the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented together with his art photography projects, the Documenta project Fairytale, the countless blog and cell phone photographs. A comprehensive book accompanies this exhibition. Ai Weiwei is a generalist, a conceptual, socially critical artist dedicated to creating friction with, and forming