An Artist of Actionism - Ai Weiwei becomes Visiting Professor at the UDK Berlin
Already since 2011, Ai Weiwei was involved in the Academy of Arts, Berlin. At this time, the dissident artist was still in custody in China at an unknown location. After four years, the time has come now. Ai Weiwei has returned his passport, and thus his freedom, and takes a three-year visiting professorship at the Academy of Arts in Berlin office starting in October 2015.
In 1957 Ai Weiwei was already born into a family that was always critically faced the People's Republic of China. His father Ai Qing was a poet and regime critic, he was exiled by the dictatorship for 20 years. In the '80s Ai Weiwei lived in New York and engaged in-depth with performance, conceptual art, Dadaism and Pop Art. Due to illness of his father he returned to Beijing in 1993.
Early on, the artist campaigned politically and socially. This was heading him always a repression by Chinese authorities. For example, in 2010 he denounced the destruction of the environment and the lack of educational opportunities in China. He criticized: "The government, the entire system [...] sacrifices education, environmental resources and the interests of most people, just so few people with a connection to the government can become extremely rich."
In 2011 the Chinese government then reproached him in terms of tax evasion and detained Ai Weiwei. This triggered an international media avalanche in which influential cultural workers and politicians around the world campaigned for the artist asking for his release. At that time the cooperation with the Academy of Arts began, which offered him a professorship for the time after his release. Back then Ai Weiwei already confirmed his participance "with great joy".
One year ago in anticipation of his release, he sent the mother of his son Lao with her son to Berlin, where they live since then, waiting for their beloved husband and father. Now the time has come. Ai Weiwei is to get students from all relevant art forms in his class - architects, installation artists, painters and sculptors.
