All images courtesy of Martin-Gropius-BauHold onto your hats, Martin-Gropius-Bau is doing it big: tomorrow, April 3, the fabled Berlin exhibition hall debuts Evidence, the newest show from artist, activist, and all-around important import, Ai Weiwei.Boasting 18 different rooms that span 3,000 square feet (one piece features 6,000 wooden stools that date back to the Ming Dynasty), the show is the artist's largest solo exhibition yet, and it features a number of exclusively-authored and never-before-seen works from the prolific global pioneer.
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It's heavy stuff, but that's what we've come to expect from the artist oft-referred to as one of the world's most vital. And despite his highly-publicized triumphs and travails, Weiwei still retains his senses of humor and wonder, evident in his recent willingness to star in a new, dystopian sci-fi film, shot "completely under the radar" in China.We were lucky enough to snag some press pics from the upcoming show. Enjoy them in all their artifactual, iconoclastic glory, below:
Stools, 2014
Han Dynasty Vases with Auto Paint, 2014
From the Press Release:"Among the works and installations on display at the Martin-Groupius-Bau will be a golden copy of the zodiac sculptures (Golden Zodiac, 2011) cast in bronze (c. 1750) by Chinese craftsmen according to designs by the Europeans Castiglione and Benoist. They formed part of a kind of sun and water clock and were located in a garden commissioned by the Emperor which also featured buildings in the European style. In 1860, after the end of the Second Opium War, the entire garden was ransacked and torched by the rapacious British and French soldiers that had conquered Beijing in order to force China to take part in the opium trade. Some of these bronze zodiac figures found their way to Europe, and when they turned up in Paris in 2008 at an auction of Yves Saint-Laurent's art collection they caused a sensation in the Chinese cultural sphere. Ai Weiwei does not accept the Chinese government's stance, that these bronze figures are Chinese national treasures, declaring that, rather, they belong to the whole world."
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Diaoyu Islands, 2014
Souvenir from Shanghai, 2014
Very Yao, 2009-2014Evidence opens in Berlin at Martin-Gropius-Bau on April 3, 2014, and runs through July 7. Find out more about the epic exhibition by clicking here.For more on Ai Weiwei see our past documentary on his collaboration with Olafur Eliasson:Make Your Mark On The Moon With Ai Weiwei And Olafur Eliasson
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Very Yao, 2009-2014Evidence opens in Berlin at Martin-Gropius-Bau on April 3, 2014, and runs through July 7. Find out more about the epic exhibition by clicking here.For more on Ai Weiwei see our past documentary on his collaboration with Olafur Eliasson:Make Your Mark On The Moon With Ai Weiwei And Olafur Eliasson
