The Art of Dissent: Ai Weiwei, Rebel with a Cause

Abstract

Famous worldwide for his critique of the Chinese regime and its infringement of human rights, Ai Weiwei is considered to be a fearless artist who contests the margins of art and politics. As a human rights hero, he plays the Western media while profiting from the neoliberal system. Ai Weiwei’s rebellious activities do not just tear down the state; they also work to build up civil society. Ai’s most recent art and activism have been directed at the international “refugee crisis.” In the creation of his documentary, Human Flow (2017), the artist and his team traveled to more than 23 countries and 40 refugee camps in order to compassionately document the experience of the contemporary refugee and the various, mostly failed, institutional responses. In a related project, and at least in part in response to the United States’ election of Donald Trump and the latter’s new policy of fencing and immigration bans, Ai conceived of a massive network of fences, banners, ad platforms, bus shelters, and sculptural structures throughout New York City as a “passionate response to the global migration crisis and a reflection on the profound social and political impulse to divide people from each other” (Public Art Fund). This chapter proposes to explore the genres, media, and scale of protest and dissent articulated by Ai Weiwei in his work, public appearances and social media presence. His advocacy for human rights and freedom of speech is strongly intertwined with the figure of the artist as intellectual and the intellectual as artist, bringing forth a culture of contestation that challenges representational practices while creating new spaces for dialogues and global justice.