Stars of the Now

Ai Weiwei – Art, Protest and Freedom of Expression

Art with Tal Lanir

Artist, activist, provocateur, and one of the figures most strongly identified with contemporary art, Ai Weiwei has made his life and his struggle for freedom of expression an inseparable part of his work.

How do millions of porcelain sunflower seeds become a work of art? Why smash a two-thousand-year-old vase? And how can art be used to address censorship, surveillance, migration, and political power?

Through several of his best-known works, the lecture will examine the encounter between Chinese tradition and global culture, between art and activism, and between personal creation and public protest. It will show how Ai Weiwei expanded the boundaries of the artist’s role and turned art into a tool for action in the museum, public space, online, and in political discourse.

Tal Lanir is a curator of interdisciplinary art at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, specializing in contemporary art and in the connections between art and new and diverse media. In recent years, she has curated exhibitions and projects dealing with digital art, popular culture, and the changing relationships between art, technology, and society.