a master of spectacle. In 1995 he produced three black-and-white photographs in which he smashed what looked like a 2,000-year-old urn; it was not clear whether the ceramic was real or a fake. In 2010 he covered the Turbine Hall of Tate Modern with 100m handmade porcelain sunflower seeds—a reference both to Chinese Communist Party imagery, wherein Mao Zedong represented the sun, and a symbol of brighter times to come. A huge sculpture at thewas designed to evoke horror as well as awe.
He has been obsessed with accruing items since he was a child, he says, when he would fill baskets with bits of wood and arrange them in delicate piles. In particular, Mr Ai remembers looking for materials in “Little Siberia”, a region near Xinjiang, in China’s far west. His father, Ai Qing, was a famous poet who had fallen out with the authorities during theand been sent into internal exile. The pair lived in a ramshackle shelter for several years.
His attempts to speak openly have landed him in hot water with the party in recent years. Mr Ai helped design Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” stadium for the Olympics in 2008, but refrained from attending the opening ceremony due to his concern about the government’s growing repression. “We must bid farewell to autocracy,” he wrote.