<i>Water Lilies</i> (2022).

Nearly 50 feet in length and made from 650,000 LEGO blocks, Ai Weiwei’s Water Lilies (2022) is the artist’s largest and most ambitious LEGO work to date. Claude Monet’s iconic triptych from the Museum of Modern Art in New York,  is “probably one of the most popular Impressionist works by Monet and surprisingly, he spent his last 20 years painting about 250 works like this,” the artist shared of his inspiration. “To structure my work,  I needed to use 650,000 Lego pieces.” Weaving in his own personal memories, the artist shares the significance of the Monet work to his own life. “My father was exiled in this underground dugout where we all live, which is represented by this black hole. I wanted to integrate my youth and my father’s exiled situation into this piece. I remember him telling me the story when I was about ten and he was in Paris. His artwork had been selected by Monet’s independent salon, which was a big deal for a young artist. So this work basically wrapped up my father’s tragic life. That experience made me today.”  

<i>Double Stools,</i> (1997).

“At the time I made this work, I was inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s readymade. But I thought, I need to go one step ahead of it, and give it a little more of my cultural background understanding. So the readymade is no longer an object but a cultural heritage. So I consider China’s culture or Chinese politics as a readymade. I  restructured it and then make a commentary and very often it’s kind of humorous and critical at the same time. This pair of stools are fashioned into a self-formed circle and it’s very strong structurally without the use of any nails. It takes a profound knowledge about furniture making and only Chinese can do that.” 

Installation view of <i>Snake Ceiling</i> (2009).

The installation consists of hundreds of children’s backpacks and commemorates the children killed in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. “Snake Ceiling is a product of my deep involvement with one earthquake,” says the artist. “The devastating earthquake killed around 80,000, many of them students. I was questioning the government since school buildings are built by government and they should pass a regulation of earthquake. I was questioning why did this building collapse but the residential buildings next door did not? I think it is a huge corruption among contractors and government officials. We did a lot of research to find out who was killed: their names, birthdays, and locations. We ended up finding 5,219  students’ name and birthdays. I posted it on my blog. People thought I was crazy because nobody ever question the government. This research became a live social, political movement in itself. I used the symbol of the children’s backpacks I saw hanging everywhere into a, structured snake, which, in China, means unpredictable danger.”

<i>Double Bicycle</i> (2003).

Ai Weiwei’s “Forever Bicycles” is a series of public art installations consisting of thousands of “Forever” brand bicycles assembled into large, often archway-like structures, referencing the brand’s ubiquity in China during his childhood. 

“The bicycle is one of the few objects every household had in China growing up. When I was a child, the whole society is very poor. To have a bike is a very luxury item. And the Forever Bicycle was the best brand at that time. It’s very durable and it’s very practical matter and build very strong for the countryside.  I said let’s use daily objects to build a structure. Together with my architecture students, we managed to use bicycles as materials instead of bricks and concrete.” 

Installation view of <i>Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads,</i> (2010).

“I wanted to do a set of zodiacs that relate to every viewer in Chinese understanding. The background of zodiacs is the Qing Dynasty in the Imperial Palace where they were fixtures in the garden. By 1840 the British had twice invaded China,  the second time with the French, so they looted the palace and took all those sculptures back to Europe. Years later, about seven of them appeared in the market, So China said we will buy it back. It is a colorful story. I think because there’s no complete set, I have to create the other five: dragon, snake, lamb, dog, rooster. So I made those in the same style, then a set of zodiac was created.” 

<i>Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn,</i> (1995).

“When I made this work, I said to my brother, I’m going to drop this one, can you catch it with my F3 camera, Nikon. I started to drop it. You hear the crack and you have to clean up the dust. Ironically, this later being seen as some kind of iconic image of me. They call me some kind of, I don’t know, icon against authority or culture, which is okay, but that’s the story.”