11/08/2010

In China, the Crackdown on Activists Continues

Ai Weiwei attends an opera premiere in Germany in October 2009

AP Photo/Focke Strangmann

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was released Sunday evening from two days of house arrest in Beijing intended to block him from attending a party at his studio in Shanghai. The party, which went on without the host, was to mark the structure's impending demolition. Shanghai authorities, who had invited Ai to build a studio on farmland in the city's Jiading district, told the artist that the building had been deemed illegal and needed to be removed.

In recent years Ai has been one of China's most visible artists. He was one of the designers of the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, the centerpiece of the 2008 Olympics. Last month he completed an installation of 100 million porcelain sunflower seeds at the Turbine Hall of the Tate Modern gallery in London.(Read 'The China Paradox' by Ai Weiwei.)

He has also become one of the Chinese government's most vocal critics. Ai believes the demolition order was in retaliation for a pair of documentaries he produced that riled the Shanghai government. One was about a man who killed six Shanghai police officers in 2008, and the other about a Shanghai activist who lived in the Tokyo airport while he wasn't allowed to return home. "They were very embarrassed," Ai says. "They pictured me as trouble for them even though they invited me before the Olympics to build my own studio."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2030021,00.html#ixzz14i5kEFmH
Nov 8, 2010 10:48:12 AM | Activist/Dissident, Current Affairs, Politics

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