AI WEIWEI: RESISTANCE OF ART AND CULTURAL MATERIAL

Abstract

The photo essay I present below was carried out in 2021 at the exhibition “Rapture”, by the Chinese activist and artist Ai Weiwei, held at Cordoaria Nacional, in Lisbon. Living in Portugal, this was the artist's first and largest exhibition with 85 pieces produced in various formats, materials and sizes, including cork, straw, paper, marble, clay, cloth, metal, ceramics and tiles. His versatility turns everything into art and activism, as human rights are a constant in his work, which seeks to reveal a particular way of questioning the world. Whether in the face of tragedies, war, political persecution, the environmental crisis, censorship, the pandemic, the refugee crisis or his own fight for freedom, when the Chinese government kept him imprisoned for 81 days in 2011, due to his intense criticism mainly of the disrespect for human rights. I reflect on the materials used by Weiwei as part of his culture and how this same process can be thought of in Amazonian art.