ArtSEA: A massive Ai Weiwei retrospective lands at Seattle Art Museum

World-renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei is getting the retrospective treatment — and his largest-ever U.S. exhibition — with Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei (March 12 - Sept. 7). Featuring photos, sculptures, videos, LEGO-based works and installations from the Chinese artist’s illustrious 40-year career, it’s a comprehensive look at how Ai challenges authority, engages in political activism and questions received histories and cultural values.

Ai, Rebel is a lot to bite into. Helpfully, SAM’s curator of Chinese art FOONG Ping split the show into three digestible thematic galleries, which separately explore different facets of Ai’s career as a rebel, a material disruptor and an activist surveilling the state surveilling him. (The exhibition title itself is a reference to Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi novel I, Robot, as the book and Ai’s work both grapple with the concept of “real”). 

Included are some of the artist’s greatest hits: the iconic photo triptych “Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn” (1995); one ton of hand-painted porcelain sunflower seeds from his seminal work “Sunflower Seeds” (2010); and Ai-made replicas of Qing-dynasty blue-and-white porcelain vessels (SAM nestled Ai’s fakes among authentic 18th-century blue-and-white porcelain from its collection — can you spot the difference?). 

Also on display are several pieces from the artist’s early career. A whole wall is dedicated to photos of Ai’s time bumming around New York City in the 1980s, dining with the likes of Beat poet Allen Ginsberg and snapping photos of New Yorkers on the street. Another room features some of the last oil paintings Ai ever worked on, like the Warhol-inspired triptych “Mao 1-3” from 1985 and a Chinese army raincoat replete with a built-in condom in “Safer Sex” (1988).

For an artist so well known that his reputation seems almost mythical, these early works give the show a beating thrum of humanness. Ai’s humor and influences (Marcel Duchamp, Dadaism, Pop Art) are much more evident in these pieces — but Ai told The New York Times that he felt a little shy sharing them.

“We all have a beginning,” he said. “The beginning is always pretty clumsy and unprepared. But if you keep working, you may reach some unknown.”

Ai is perhaps best known for his full-throated criticism of the Chinese government, calling for greater transparency and more forgiving free-speech laws. After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake — which left 90,000 dead including 5,300 children, many of them students — the artist took to social media sites like Twitter as a means to condemn the government for repressing death toll numbers and shunting responsibility. 

In “Snake Ceiling” (2008), a curvy line composed of children’s backpacks, and “Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizens’ Investigation” (2008-2011), a literal list of every dead student found in the earthquake rubble, Ai took the investigation and memorialization of the disaster into his own hands.

Over the years, the Chinese government repeatedly detained and questioned Ai, and in 2011 he was ultimately held in an undisclosed cell for 81 days — faithfully recreated in the life-sized installation “81” (2013), which visitors are welcome to step into — sans charges. 

Ai was eventually allowed to leave China in 2015 and now splits his time between Berlin and Portugal. He continues to make political art, focusing on the European refugee crisis in pieces like “After the Death of Marat” (2019), a colorful “painting” made entirely of LEGOs, which references a 2015 photo of 2-year-old Alan Kurdi, who drowned in the Mediterranean Sea after fleeing Syria. In Ai’s version, he places himself as a stand-in for Kurdi, which generated a considerable amount of controversy at the time. 

Ai, Rebel comes as the United States is facing unprecedented levels of repression, and certainly this exhibition seems particularly apt for our country’s frightful turn. As we trudge our way through this era of bots, deep fakes, and fake news hysteria, artists like Ai Weiwei will be the ones to help us make sense of it all.

If this huge show still isn’t enough Ai Weiwei for you, Ai, Rebel is just the start. At the end of the month, SAM’s satellite locations will also host prominent works — Ai Weiwei: Water Lilies opens March 19 at the Seattle Asian Art Museum and Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Bronze) opens May 17 at the Olympic Sculpture Park.

As spring begins to do its thing and make the world anew, many first-ever events are hitting Seattle this weekend. From film to comics to LASERS, we’ve got some top-notch premieres over the next few days:

FILM < The National Nordic Museum and Scandinavia House are teaming up to present the West Nordic Film Festival (March 14-15), a new fest screening movies from Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands at Majestic Bay Theater. Features include My Father’s Daughter, which follows a Sámi teen conceived via IVF who meets her (disappointing) biological father; and When the Light Breaks, an Icelandic drama about a young woman who loses her secret boyfriend in an accident and must carry her grief alone.

COMICS < MoPOP’s latest show Asian Comics: Evolution of an Art Form (March 8 - Jan. 4, 2026) delves into the development of visual storytelling on the continent, featuring more than 400 works from countries including Japan, China, Bhutan, Cambodia, India and Vietnam.

MUSIC < While Mozart’s Requiem is far from being “new,” Seattle Choral Company’s performance of the classic is accompanied by a brand-new piece by Emmy-winning composer Jasmine Barnes. Her work, Epoch of Hughes, made specifically for SCC, is inspired by Langston Hughes’ poetry and will be premiered by the choir at St. Mark’s Cathedral (March 15, 8-10pm).

THEATER < And in the theater world, the global premiere of Mother Russia (March 6 - April 13) hits Seattle Rep’s stage this week. The post-Soviet-era comedy by lauded playwright Lauren Yee focuses on two Russian guys who find work surveilling a former pop star and discover that life (and spying) under capitalism ain’t so grand either.

LASERS < Lasers! Lasers are the answer! Wa Na Wari has commissioned New York-based artists Mendi + Keith Obadike to create an original laser art installation, GuideStar, that will beam out from the top of the Space Needle (March 14 at 7:30 p.m.). The vibrant, primary-colored lasers will be accompanied by an ambient music set composed by the duo for viewers to listen to via streaming link. I love accessible art!