Tate’s eleventh Unilever annual commission for the Turbine Hall, was a work by one of China’s greatest artists Ai Weiwei, (b.1957, Beijing). Ai’s multiple roles as conceptual artist, curator, publisher, self-taught architect, public intellectual and Internet-champion, reflect on today’s society, using himself as an example to encourage individual responsibility.
His work often uses a traditional formal language and classical methods of craft and production in China to encourage reflection on the geo-politics of cultural and economic exchange today. He is in conversation with Katie Hill, curator and Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Chinese Art.
