Tax evasion allegations and a career retrospective of Ai Weiwei

In April 2011 Ai was detained for alleged “economic crimes”—it was later revealed that he was accused of tax evasion—in what was seen as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent. He was released on bail more than two months later, with Chinese state media reporting that he had confessed to the charges against him. In November, however, Ai was levied with a tax bill of 15 million yuan ($2.4 million). He contested the bill with the aid of private donations, but his final appeal was denied in court in September 2012, and shortly thereafter he announced that FAKE’s business license had been revoked. The international media coverage of the incidents brought further attention to Ai’s art. In May 2011, while he was still in detention, his public installation Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads, which featured bronze sculptures inspired by the Chinese zodiac, was unveiled in New York City and London. The work had been created for the São Paulo Biennial in 2010.

A major career retrospective, “Ai Weiwei: According to What?”, which had originated in Tokyo in 2009, debuted at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. The documentaries Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry (2012) and Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case (2013) depict the artist’s achievements and vicissitudes.

Later work

In the mid-2010s Ai turned his attention to the global refugee crisis with several projects, including a temporary installation of 14,000 life vests around the columns of the Konzerthaus Berlin concert hall (2016). The vests were collected by Ai on the Greek island of Lesbos, where he and his studio stayed for several months during the height of the Syrian Civil War, when hundreds of asylum seekers arrived each day on their way to Europe after braving a perilous sea journey from Turkey. The installation was reportedly intended not only to call attention to the crisis but also to serve as a tribute to the individuals who perished during the passage.

Ai later premiered the documentary Human Flow at the Venice Film Festival in 2017. The movie follows the plights of millions of displaced persons across 23 countries through intimate interviews of individual refugees and drone footage of expansive temporary camps. That same year a series of the artist’s public sculptures, titled Good Fences Make Good Neighbors (a reference to a line in Robert Frost’s poem “Mending Wall”), was installed throughout New York City. The pieces included Arch in Washington Square Park, Gilded Cage at an entrance to Central Park, and Five Fences on the north portico of the Cooper Union’s Foundation Building. Ai indicated that the works were a response to the shift of the United States toward exclusionary immigration policies.

During this time Ai’s trouble with Chinese authorities seemingly continued when his studio was again demolished in 2018. The space was part of the ZuoYou (Left Right) Art District in Beijing, and Ai was aware that it was slated to be razed like other art districts in China as part of a redevelopment scheme. However, the clearing began without warning, and some of his artworks were damaged. Ai indicated that he did not regard the surprise destruction as an act of political retaliation against him specifically but rather as an example of China’s discriminatory practices against all artists and those who practice free expression.

In 2020 Ai released Coronation, a documentary about the Chinese government’s response to the growing health crisis in Wuhan, the origin of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Europe, where he had been based since 2015, Ai directed a crew of volunteers to film the city’s strict lockdown measures and their impact on everyday life. Ai recounted the story of his life and that of his father’s in 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows: A Memoir (2021).

Ai was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale for sculpture by the Japan Art Association in 2022.