Year of the Ox PP 2021 - Huge

Year2021

Hand SignedLower Left 

Condition Mint 

Not Framed 

Purchased fromGallery 2021 

Story / Additional InfoYear of the Ox references Ai’s twelve-part work Zodiac (2018). This series of portraits was made of brightly colored LEGO bricks that reference the artificial Day-Glo palette of Warhol silkscreens and depict the traditional Chinese zodiac animal heads.
The artist recreated these objects earlier in his career with the celebrated series of sculptures Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads: Bronze and Gold(2010). Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac Heads sculptures have been touring the globe to great acclaim for over a decade and have been exhibited at over 45 international venues, making it one of the most viewed sculpture projects in the history of modern and contemporary art.The fraught history of the zodiac heads objects is still a point of cultural tension: the original works were part of elaborate water fountain at the imperial Summer Palace in Beijing. In 1860, those works were stolen after the Summer Palace was sacked and burned by French and British armies. While several of the original heads were returned to China, the whereabouts of five animals (dragon, ram, snake, rooster, and dog) remain unknown to this day. By re-creating these celebrated objects, Ai Weiwei calls into question complex themes concerning historical grievance, acts of looting, destruction, nationalism, repatriation, authenticity, and forgery.
Carrying the theme of the zodiac animals through to the medium of silkscreen, Ai’s colorful new edition Year of the Ox (2021), counterbalances the historic and symbolic value of these cultural artifacts with the irreverent language of Pop Art.
 

Certificate of AuthenticityArt Brokerage 

Additional Information2nd Huge Price Drop - Motivated 

LID159205

Ai Weiwei - China

Art Brokerage: Ai Weiwei - Blue Chip Chinese Artist: b. 1957. Ai Weiwei is one of the best known artists working today. His provocative blend of Chinese history and tradition within a wholly contemporary practice serves as a form of human rights activism, cultural commentary, and critique of the global imbalance of power—a fact that has turned Ai into a political target. "I will never leave China," he once declared. "Unless I am forced to. Because China is mine. I will not leave something that belongs to me in the hands of people I do not trust." Born on August 28, 1957 in Beijing, China, the artist enrolled in the Beijing Film Academy in 1978. Ai lived in the United State between 1981 and 1993, primarily in New York, where he attended the Parsons School of Design. Detained for 81 days by the Chinese government in 2011, the artist was released without ever being officially charged with a crime. Undeterred, he continues to make confrontational and socially engaged art, as seen in his iconic installation Sunflower Seeds, in which he covered the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall floor with millions of porcelain seeds handmade by factory workers in China. In 2012, Alison Klayman's documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film documents Ai's career, interviews members of his family, and shows his process of installing shows. Ai continues to live and work in China. The artist's works are held in the collections of the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and The Museum of Modern Art in New York, among others Listings wanted.