Nothing can discourage this Beijing-based artist, even though the Chinese authorities have tried on numerous occasions - they detained the artist for 81 days in 2011 and refuse to return his passport. These recent events have informed Ai’s practice rather than deter his rise in the international art scene. Regardless that he can’t travel to the cities his work is shown in, he continues to make thought provoking and politically engaged work.
For his third show at Lisson, he’s taken the humble bicycle, ubiquitous to Beijing, and created a geometrically stacked installation that symbolises a dying breed of daily existence; the rate of bicycle manufacture has diminished due to the rise in cars. Other works recount his period of detention along with personal objects produced in marble, crystal, wood and stainless steel.