Ai Weiwei

Duration of the exhibition: 17th Sept. 2011–5th Feb. 2012

The first large-scale exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s photographic and video work—taken over from the Fotomuseum Winterthur—puts the spotlight on Ai Weiwei the communicator and indefatigable remembrancer, the documenting, analysing, interlacing and multichannel-communicating artist. Even in his New York period (1983–1993), Ai Weiwei took photographs, but especially since his return to Beijing, he has tirelessly documented everyday realities of the urban environment and society in China, and discussed them in blogs and twitters. The photographs of the radical changes to the urban built fabric, the search for earthquake victims, and the destruction of his Shanghai studio are presented along with art-photographic projects, the documenta Fairytale project, the countless blog and mobile-phone photographs. The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive book of material and archives.