Ten Times Ai WeiWei Has Been A Hero

Chinese artist Ai WeiWei is all over the news this week after he cancelled an exhibition to protest new Danish laws allowing authorities to confiscate valuables from refugees. But who is Ai WeiWei? Here are ten times he's been a hero.

#1: The time he set up a studio on a Greek Island to draw attention to refugees risking their lives at sea

Instagram: @aiww

Ai WeiWei is China's most famous artist and creates sculptures, paintings, photos, Tweets, dance videos and heavy metal songs, sometimes to highlight government oppression, sometimes for fun.

This January he set up an art studio on the Greek of Lesbos, where thousands of migrants fleeing war-torn countries like Syria and Iraq pass through on their way to Europe every day. Not everyone makes it: almost 4,000 refugees either drowned or went missing while crossing the Mediterranean last year.

While politicians in Europe fret over border controls, Ai WeiWei says "The border is not in Lesbos, it really [is] in our minds and in our hearts".

Instagram: @aiww

#2: The time he took on Lego and won

Instagram: @aiww

Ai WeiWei is used to challenging the Chinese government, but this year he also faced the manufacturer of tiny coloured bricks, Lego.

When Ai WeiWei tried to buy a huge batch of Lego bricks for an art piece last October, Lego refused to sell because the artist would use their toy for 'political purposes'.

Weiwei was not best pleased, and accused Lego of censorship. Yet soon a campaign of public brick donations was under way and the hashtag #legosforweiwei went viral. Ai WeiWei was swamped with millions of bricks.

This month Lego caved in to public demand and changed its policy of asking bulk buyers their purpose in purchasing bricks. WeiWei hailed the decision was a ‘small victory for freedom of speech’, and posted the picture below on his Instagram.

Instagram: @aiww

#3: The time he forced the Chinese government to investigate the thousands of children killed in the 2008 earthquake and then made a giant piece of art in their memory

Joerg Koch / AFP / Getty Images / Via wsj.com

The Chinese government initially tried to censor news of the devastating earthquake that struck Sichuan Province in 2008, killing around 80,000 people. It proved impossible to stifle coverage of a disaster on such a scale. However, ten months later, the government still refused to count or name students who had been killed while studying that day in poorly designed and unsafe school buildings.

Outraged, Ai WeiWei set up volunteer groups of citizens to investigate, and each day he posted on Twitter the names of the earthquake child victims who should have been celebrating their birthday.

In an exhibition in Berlin, Ai WeiWei set up a huge wall of 9,000 backpacks in memory of the schoolchildren, which said in giant characters, 'She Lived Happily on This Earth for Seven Years'.

Finally, the government announced that 5,335 students had died in the earthquake, partly thanks to the attention Ai WeiWei drew to the issue.

#4 That time Ai WeiWei placed himself under 24-hour surveillance

Via forbes.com

While preparing to board a flight from Beijing to Hong Kong, the police dragged Ai WeiWei away and he was kept for 81 days, supposedly for evading taxes.

When he was released, Ai WeiWei found himself under 24 hour surveillance. "In my life, there is so much surveillance and monitoring -- my phone, my computer ... our office has been searched, I have been searched, every day I am being followed, there are surveillance cameras in front of my house".

Ai WeiWei's response? He made the state surveillance easier by surveilling himself. He put up cameras all over his computer, bedroom and courtyard and broadcast his life live online for 24 hours a day at weiweicam.com.

Embarrassed, the government told him to take down four of the cameras. Why? "I don't even have a reason for why they put me away for 81 days," says Ai WeiWei. "There's never clear, rational discussion".

#5 The time Ai WeiWei released a heavy metal track called "Dumbass" and starred in the video

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While few former inmates want to relive their captivity, Ai WeiWei turned the experience of his 81 days inside into a heavy metal track called 'Dumbass'. In the music video, Ai WeiWei is a prisoner shadowed by guards who stand uncomfortably close whether he trying to slurp noodles or go to the toilet, and they make him parade around wearing lipstick and a skimp cocktail dress.

While the lyrics are in Mandarin, a translation on Ai WeiWei's website contains such lines as, "Stand on the frontline like a dumbass, in a country that puts out like a hooker. / The field’s full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere. / The field’s full of fuckers, dumbasses are everywhere".

#6 When Ai WeiWei became a social media star and turned his Tweets into art

Jenni Carter via Gene and Brian Sherman Collection, Sydney / Via news.artnet.com

When Chinese social media platform Sina invited Ai WeiWei to host a blog, he at first posted hundreds of daily photos of his visitors, his cats and his wanderings. The blog turned to political matters and was soon shut down.

But then WeiWei found Twitter, and started to spend up to 8 hours a day on it. Asked if social media were distracting him from art, he replied, "I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art. Those other works might be collectible, something you can hang on the wall, but that’s just a conventional perspective. We shouldn’t do things a certain way just because Rembrandt did it that way. If Shakespeare were alive today, he might be writing on Twitter".

The artist transcribed a four year period of his Tweets into a traditional Chinese book, printed on rice paper, then put them on display at a gallery in Sydney, Australia.

These days Ai WeiWei has over 300,000 followers on Twitter and keeps up a lively Instagram account, which regularly features his cats (below).

#7 The time he danced terribly to Gangnam Style

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“He’s the avant garde artist of his time, a sculpture, a satirist, a paragon voice for the masses evoking the dregs of social inequities,” one YouTube user says, “But god damn is he not a dancer”.

When Ai WeiWei uploaded this video of he and colleagues dancing badly to PSY's Gangnam Style, it caused major confusion verging on anger for some. What was a well known dissident artist and activist doing prancing around to pop music?

There are lots of theories. One professor says its a comment on how Korean artists like PSY can indulge in satire (remember Gangnam Style itself is a satire of K-Pop music), yet no such culture of self-poking fun exists in China. Writer Even Osnos, who discusses Ai Wei Wei in his excellent book 'Age of Ambition', says Chinese hipsters have a sense of inferiority compared to their cool Korean neighbours.

Explanations aside, the video shows that while others might, Ai WeiWei isn't taking himself too seriously.

#8 The time he helped design one of the highlights of Chinese modern architecture and still managed to criticise the government

Bob Ramsak / Via pirancafe.com

The beautiful Bird's Nest Stadium inspired the world at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and Ai WeiWei helped to design its striking exterior. However, he became increasingly disillusioned with the project and quit, telling the media that "The Beijing Olympics have oppressed the life of the general public with the latest technologies and a security apparatus of 700,000 guards" and "It was merely a stage for a political party to advertise its glory to the world".

Hollywood director Stephen Spielberg was working as an artistic advisor for the games, but followed Ai WeiWei's lead and quit in protest of China's foreign policy.

Even though he regretted working on the Bird's Nest, Ai WeiWei helped to design a masterpiece of modern architecture while gaining a platform from which to criticise the Chinese government and the games. Not a bad way to go.

#9 The time Ai WeiWei leaped with just a Grass Mud Horse covering his genitals

Via whatsonweibo.com

When the Chinese government announced it planned to eradicate "online vulgarity" from the internet, a mythical alpaca-like creature started going viral, appearing in animations and singing songs. The grass mud horse had been born.

The fantastical creature arose, in Mandarin, the pronunciation of "grass mud horse", cǎonímǎ, is highly similar to “fuck your mother", "cào nǐ mā". Whereas the characters for the rude version would encounter online censorship, at the time no censor was on the look out for grassy mud horses.

Ai WeiWei loved the grass mud horse, and soon posted the picture of him holding a stuffed grass mud horse over his genitals with the caption "Grass Mud Horse Covering the Middle", which in Mandarin sounds very much like "Fuck your mother, party central committee".

The artist also shows others how they can embrace their creativity and make their very own grass mud horse sock puppet in this Guardian piece.

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Ai WeiWei sings the grass mud horse song shortly after being released from police custody.

#10 All the times he took photos of his cats

Instagram: @aiww / Via artmatters.ca

Around 40 cats live with Ai WeiWei in his Beijing home. They make regular appearances on his Instagram feed and even seem to have their own dedicated Tumblr, Cats of Ai WeiWei.

In Alison Klayman's documentary "Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry", the artist ponders, Out of the 40 cats, one knows how to open doors. If I’d never met this cat that can open doors, I wouldn’t know cats can open doors".