Nigel Ip

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense at the Design Museum, London, is an impressively accessible overview to one of the world’s most politically-engaging contemporary artists.

The free-flowing exhibition takes place in one giant room, enabling multiple thematic and conceptual links to be established between the artist’s diverse output. Like some kind of modern-day Piranesi, Ai approaches historic and modern artefacts from an archaeological perspective, making parallels between civilisations from across China’s dynastic history and present regime. A field of broken-off porcelain spouts from imperfect Song dynasty teapots and ewers have been reconceptualised to symbolise censorship and lack of free speech. In another work, human bone fragments from a labour camp have been reconstructed out of the same material.

Dual concepts (old/new, collectivism/individuality, destruction/construction, life/death) and materials – especially porcelain – play a prominent role in Ai’s work in questioning the value of daily mundane objects and, by extension, human lives. Toilet paper immortalised in marble remind us of the panic-buying and shortages during COVID-19. Similarly, hardwood reserved for fine furniture has taken the form of a memorial-like rubbish container where 5 boys in Guizhou province suffocated inside due to carbon monoxide poisoning as they lit a fire to shelter from the cold in 2012.

A lot of Ai’s work deals with society’s bad acts, but he also contemplates the beneficial flipside using, again, materials as a conceptual catalyst. LEGO famously refused to sell to him as a result of his political activism. The public backlash led to him receiving a swathe of donations, resulting in the creation of works like his version of Monet’s paradisal Water Lilies (but with a dark twist). By contrast, the same collective effort was used in the creation of handmade porcelain cannonballs for war in the Song dynasty.

One doesn’t need a deep understanding of Chinese politics (I certainly don’t) to appreciate this show because Ai’s approach touches on humanity’s most fundamental morals and ideas. It just makes sense.

Ai Weiwei: Making Sense runs until 30 July 2023 at the Design Museum, London, www.designmuseum.org