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Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has shaped the art world like few others – and now he’s taking Singapore by storm with a major solo exhibition showcasing 20 years of his boldest, most thought-provoking work. Running from March 21 to May 2 at Tang Contemporary Art, the show spans sculpture, installation, film and photography, exploring themes of history, cultural heritage, and global consumer culture.
Ai Weiwei is known worldwide for combining traditional craft with conceptual thought, moving fluidly between mediums to create works that are deeply personal yet rooted in current social realities – from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake to global refugee crises.
The Singapore exhibition offers a chance to flip through a real-life catalogue of Ai Weiwei’s career, and a front-row seat to his ingenious twists on scale, material, and form that turn ordinary objects into extraordinary art. Highlights from the solo show include Zodiac heads – reimagined versions of artifacts looted from Beijing’s Old Summer Palace in 1860 and rebuilt with toy bricks – and Wheat Field with Crows, where drones replace birds and historical paintings are pixelated, showing how images shape what we see.
Ai Weiwei’s career includes landmark exhibitions at Tate Modern, Venice Biennale, and Mori Art Museum, and works like Sunflower Seeds (an installation with millions of tiny porcelain sunflower seeds carpeting the floor of London’s Tate Modern) and his cheeky 1995 Study of Perspective series, where he famously flips the middle finger to world monuments. He has received numerous honours, including the Praemium Imperiale (2022) and Amnesty International’s Ambassador of Conscience Award (2015).
More information can be found here. Follow Tang Contemporary Art on Instagram here for more updates.
Tang Contemporary Art is located 402 Orchard Road, Delfi, #06-01/02, 238876.
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