A leading figure among Chinese artists of his generation, Ai Weiwei creates art that poses fundamental questions about the ways in which art and culture interrelate with society and how society interrelates with individual existence. As a result of his internationally acclaimed work and his direct engagement with Chinese policies and politics, Ai has been thrust into the global spotlight. Featuring his most significant works since 2000, this catalog offers insight into the artist’s use of simple forms and artistic methods reminiscent of Conceptual and Minimal art, his preoccupation with the traditional design of furniture and other daily objects, and his iconoclastic attitudes toward traditional values and political authority. The book includes works in sculpture, photography, video, and site-specific architectural installations, making it an invaluable resource on Ai’s enormously diverse oeuvre. *Starred Review* Ai Weiwei is China’s most internationally famous artist because of his design work on the “bird’s nest” stadium built for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, his political activism, and his arrests, detention, and beating at the hands of Chinese officials. Published in conjunction with the first North American exhibition of his work, which will travel across the U.S. this year and most of the next, this superb volume of commentary and colorplates presents an enlightening and moving overview of Ai’s diverse, strongly conceptual, and socially conscious body of work. Ai’s sensibility is rooted in his subsistence childhood, the result of his father, a famous poet, being denounced as anti-Communist and the family exiled to northwestern China. Ai lived in the U.S. from 1981 to 1993, then returned to Beijing and built his now-iconic studio. His photographs, video, performance art, architecture, and sculptural installations using materials ranging from antique furniture to mass-manufactured porcelain sunflower seeds are collaborative, communal, and profoundly resonant in their concerns, posing urgent questions about the meaning of one life among many, and our responsibilities to others. This striking and important volume reflects the bright beacon of Ai’sglobally influential and inspiring courage, compassion, intelligence, creativity, and ongoing political struggle for freedom of expression and respect for life. --Donna Seaman "This superb volume of commentary and colorplates presents an enlightening and moving overview of Ai’s diverse, strongly conceptual, and socially conscious body of work." —Booklist "[A] fine introduction to [Ai’s] intelligent, humane body of work. …This catalog is an excellent first step toward exploring all that Ai Weiwei has accomplished so far." —Library Journal "Ranging from photography and video to sculpture and architecture, it’s a primer on the recent output of one of the world’s most important artists." – Art Info "This very important publication is a must read." —Choice A leading figure among Chinese artists of his generation, Ai Weiwei creates art that poses fundamental questions about the ways in which art and culture interrelate with society and how society interrelates with individual existence. As a result of his internationally acclaimed work and his direct engagement with Chinese policies and politics, Ai has been thrust into the global spotlight Kerry Brougher is Deputy Director and Chief Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. He was previously Director of the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford, England and Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. Mami Kataoka is Chief Curator, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo. Charles Merewether is an art historian, writer and curator. Used Book in Good Condition