Archinect - News

Ai Weiwei’s minimalist New York apartment lists for $2 million

2023-03-22T14:58:00-04:00

Looking for the ultimate artist’s flat, perhaps one owned by an internationally renowned master? Look no further than this high-floor condo in the Loft 25 building in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood. The 1,400-square-foot minimalist-minded pied-à-terre is owned by Chinese contemporary artist, documentarian, and activist Ai Weiwei.

As ARTnews reported, the loft was staged with Weiwei’s 1983 Dancers painting and three Marble Chair sculptures from 2008, the same year he moved to the 79-unit building located at 420 W. 25th Street in Chelsea. The 1-bed, 2-bathroom apartment features 12-foot ceilings and appliances made by Liebherr and Bosch, among others. Weiwei originally purchased the property for $1.7 million.

Weiwei’s Upstate Tsai Residence design also sold recently for $5 million. He will have to hope for a better experience with Compass, the real estate firm responsible for the listing, after battling a German company over the misuse of his Berlin apartment that was for sale much of last year.

All images courtesy of Compass

Meanwhile, his largest-ever Lego work just went on view at MoMA. Weiwei is currently between his homes in Cambridge, England; and rural Alentejo, Portugal, where the artist reportedly feels most comfortable.

All images courtesy of Compass

All images courtesy o...

Ai Weiwei's first solo show in eight years features a 49-foot reproduction of Monet’s Water Lilies using LEGO bricks

2023-03-20T18:03:00-04:00

Ai Weiwei has unveiled a new large-scale reproduction of Claude Monet’s Water Lilies as part of an upcoming exhibition of the architect-provocateur’s work on view from April 7 at the Design Museum in London.

The 15-meter (49-foot) Water Lilles #1 is comprised of 650,000 bricks rendered in 22 different colors to reproduce the famous series of paintings, which Monet executed between 1897 and 1926 at his home studio in Giverny.

Image: Ela Bialkowska/OKNOstudio

Ai says: “It’s crucial for individuals to find a personalized language to express their experience of these challenging conditions. Personalized expression arises from identifying with history and memories while creating a new language and narrative. Without a personal narrative, artistic narration loses its quality. In Water Lilies #1 I integrate Monet's Impressionist painting, reminiscent of Zenism in the East, and concrete experiences of my father and me into a digitized and pixelated language. Toy bricks as the material, with...

Ai Weiwei still wants nothing to do with the Bird's Nest stadium two decades on

2022-02-07T16:47:00-05:00

Years prior to his departure from his home country, Ai famously consulted on the design of the venue hosting Friday night's opening ceremony: The Beijing National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest." But the artist distanced himself from the project and criticized China's hosting of the Olympics ahead of the opening ceremony, believing it to be a propaganda tool at odds with what he felt were the oppressive realities of life in the country.

Ai Weiwei originally conceived of the stadium as an inspirational structure that carried a message to China and the rest of the world about the potential for democracy within his home country, but the still-in-exile artist now says that the symbolic uses of the building are being warped into an instrument of state power.

Weiwei has been reiterating the same criticisms of the project he jointly designed with Herzog & de Meuron for over a decade, lamenting the IOC’s penchant for “standing next to authoritarians” and stating that the country “has gone backwards” in terms of its human rights record since its completion fourteen years ago. He was also quick to compare the misuse of his architectural output to the CCP’s presentation of his father’s legacy as a nationalistic poet.

“As an architect, my goal was the same as other architects, that is, to design it as perfectly as possible,” Weiwei told The Associated Press in a recent email statement. “The way it was used afterwards went in ...

Herzog & de Meuron's new M+ museum in Hong Kong finally gets an opening date

2021-09-09T08:00:00-04:00

An opening date has been set for the long-anticipated M+ Museum in Hong Kong after years of delays.

The $750 million project from Herzog & de Meuron is being heralded as Asia’s largest and most significant center for contemporary visual art and was seen as the centerpiece of Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District when it was first announced in 2003.

Construction wrapped earlier in the year on the 700,000-square-foot facility which houses a 6,400-piece collection of contemporary art, media, and architecture across 33 galleries with a host of other amenities that includes three cinema-sized theaters and a research center.

Photo courtesy Kevin Mak. © Kevin Mak Courtesy of Herzog & de Meuron.

Featuring a terracotta-clad facade with a south-facing LED display, the museum forms a T-shape with a podium and tower that stands over a triple-height installation space meant to give visitors a vertical orientation to the new...

Ai Weiwei's Tsai Residence sells for almost $5 Million

2021-04-06T19:06:00-04:00

In keeping with Robert Hughes's dictum that architecture is "the art you live in," a remarkable Ai Weiwei-designed house dubbed "living art" by some is reported to have sold this week to an unnamed buyer for the jaw-dropping price of $4.9 Million.

Tsai Residence, with guest house and pool. Image © Michael Bowman Photography

The 15-year-old home, previously available to rent, has been on the market since 2019, when it was initially listed for a slightly higher price of $5.25 Million. The prolific Chinese artist's design for the property includes an in-ground lap pool, an adjacent two-winged guest house completed three years later with a built-in studio, a BOFFI kitchen, and three fireplaces.

Guest house. Image © Michael Bowman Photography

Sitting on a lush 37-acre plot of land in Columbia County, the 3,500-square-foot main house is composed of four interconnected module boxes made of wood and covered in corrugated iron. Its interior features wood-gypsum paneling and three large bathro...

Ai Weiwei directs documentary on COVID lockdown in Wuhan remotely, from Europe

2020-09-03T14:29:00-04:00

Titled Coronation, the documentary film looks at the lockdown in Wuhan, China during the COVID-19 outbreak that took place earlier this year. The work, which Ai Weiwei remotely directed and produced from Europe, takes viewers into the heart of the rapidly constructed emergency field hospitals and ICU wards, showing the entire process of diagnosis and treatment. The filming of the documentary was done by ordinary citizens living in Wuhan.

Ai Weiwei-designed home goes on the market for $5.25M

2019-07-01T13:21:00-04:00

Ai Weiwei, artist and activist, has dabbled in architecture more than once in his career. From his Bird's Nest collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron to his work on the Jinhua Architecture Park, Weiwei's interests in architecture would eventually draw him towards a residential project. Located in Ancram, NY, the home's first owner had built it as a vacation retreat for Chinese-American businessman and renowned art collector, Christopher Tsai.

Rear view of main house. Image © Michael Bowman Photography

Guest house. Image © Michael Bowman Photography

Weiwei collaborated with the Swiss architecture firm HHF to design the art enthusiasts getaway home. Built on 37.5 acres, the house comprises a large main house consisting of 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms. The main house is a connection of cube-like sections equaling to 3,700 square feet. In addition to the main house, Weiwei designed an additional guest house with a timber structure and corrugate...

The Architect and The Artist: Frank Gehry and Ai Weiwei meet for a memorable conversation

2019-02-14T13:42:00-05:00

For Deitch’s gallery, Gehry, 89, transformed a 15,000-square-foot former movie-lighting warehouse in Hollywood into a bright exhibition space. Ai then filled the gallery with a series of Chinese zodiac-themed works made out of Legos and a sweeping installation, first shown in 2014: a mass of nearly 6,000 antique wooden stools, scavenged from antique furniture dealers in China...

As cultural renegades of the art and architecture world, it's safe to say both have more similarities than differences. During their careers, both have had their hand in art and architecture practice. Ai Weiwei has collaborated with Herzog & de Meuron for the Beijing Olympic's 2008 Bird's Nest stadium as well as his design works for an art gallery in Beverly Hills. Frank Gehry has produced sculptural pieces like his memorable Fish Lamps and his cardboard Carumba Experimental Edges chair. After their contributions to the Deitch's gallery, Gehry who designed the space and Weiwei exhibiting his work, the two sat together to discuss their views on architecture, art, and their iconic professional careers.

Below are excerpts taken from their conversation with the NY Times written by Jori Finkel.

When discussing project freedoms between galleries and developers the two discussed their experiences.

FG: You know, I grew up in the art world — this was the way I wanted to work, more hands-on, ...

Tadao Ando-designed Wrightwood 659 art venue to open in Chicago with exhibition on Ando and Le Corbusier

2018-09-28T14:36:00-04:00

Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood is getting an exciting new art place, and it's been designed by none other than Tadao Ando. Wrightwood 659 is a major transformation of a historic building from the 1920s and will be dedicated to exhibitions on architecture and on socially engaged art.

The place has an impressive lineup of exhibitions and other events, including the inaugural show Ando and Le Corbusier: Masters of Architecture with more than 100 drawings, photographs, and models by Le Corbusier as well as 106 small models of his architectural works crafted by Tadao Ando's students. The show opens on October 12th and will run through December 15th.

A day before the opening, there's also a chance to see Tadao Ando discuss his work at the Art Institute of Chicago's annual Butler-Vanderlinden Lecture on Architecture, co-presented this year with Alphawood Foundation Chicago.

On November 8th and 9th, Wrightwood 659 will host the accompanying symposium Ando's Le Corb...

Ai Weiwei's Beijing studio has been demolished without prior warning

2018-08-06T18:23:00-04:00

Chinese authorities are razing one of the Beijing studios of dissident artist Ai Weiwei. He said that demolition crews showed up without advance warning, and have begun the process of tearing down the studio. Ai has been a longtime critic of the government, and on Saturday, he began posting videos to his Instagram feed of the studio's destruction. "Farewell," Ai wrote. "They started to demolish my studio 'Zuoyuo' in Beijing with no precaution."

Ai, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Berlin since Chinese authorities returned his confiscated passport in 2015, responded to NPR about the sudden demolition of his Zuoyou studio in Beijing:

We didn't receive any advance warning or announcement of the demolition. We were required to move by a certain date, which we have not yet reached. [...] The demolition came as a surprise. Works were damaged due to the unannounced attack on the studio. There was no caution taken. However, compared to the memories which have been lost, compared to a society which has never established trust in the social order, a trust in the rule of law, or a trust in any kind of unity in defending the rights of its people, what has been lost at my studio is insignificant, and I don't even care. There are profoundly deeper and wider ruins in this deteriorating society where the human condition has never been respected.

Jacques Herzog on how buildings can activate all the senses

2018-05-24T13:50:00-04:00

“Whenever Weiwei is involved, he offers more than just a formal solution,” Mr. Herzog said by phone from Basel. “I think that’s why we get along well. We can develop concepts together without being bound by personal taste.”

The NYT's Rebecca Schmid chats with Jacques Herzog about inspiration, curation, industrial spaces, and, of course, Ai Weiwei.

Ai Weiwei to launch three new exhibitions in Los Angeles this fall

2018-05-22T16:28:00-04:00

The Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei will have three new exhibitions coming to Los Angeles this fall. In what will be his first substantial showing in the city, Weiwei will be taking over the Marciano Art Foundation, The Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, and the UTA Artist Space on Sept 28th, Sept. 29th and Oct. 4th, respectively.

Known for his work motivated by social justice issues, the activist will inherit the massive ground-floor of the Marciano Art Foundation—currently showing the work of Olafur Eliasson—to display three large-scale installations, one of which is a response to the refugee crisis.

At the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery, where Weiwei's work will mark the opening of the new Hollywood space, a reprise of his installation from the Gropius Bau in Berlin will be shown alongside a new series depicting the Chinese zodiac made from LEGOs, according to the New York Times.

In the last of his three shows, Weiwei will do a complete architectural overhaul of a 4,000-square-foot former di...

Ai Weiwei to install over 100 fences around New York, one of his largest public works to date

2017-03-28T12:26:00-04:00

The famous, and provocative, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been commissioned to build one of his largest public works ever—100 fences and installations that will be placed around New York City. Entitled “Good Fences Make Good Neighbors,” the project was commissioned by the Public Art Fund in celebration of its 40th anniversary. In total, there will be about ten major fence-themed installations, as well as a slew of smaller works, spread around Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. More specifically, planned sites include Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, the Cooper Union building in Manhattan, and Doris C. Freedman Plaza at the southeast corner of Central Park.

The work is a reaction to “a retreat from the essential attitude of openness” that Mr. Ai says he perceives in contemporary American politics. “When the Berlin Wall fell, there were 11 countries with border fences and walls,” Mr. Ai told the New York Times. “By 2016, that number had increased to 70. We are witnessing a rise in ...

Ai Weiwei calls modern Chinese architecture 'fatalistic'

2016-08-09T13:12:00-04:00

“Everybody in China has been moved to a new location or a new city, new town, new apartment... But with such a big movement, or revolutionary change, there is very little discussion or very little meaningful challenge — intellectual challenge — about what architecture is in this fast developing society.” Despite the country's building boom, Ai says that the state of China's architectural philosphy has largely remained stagnant because conversation is stifled.

Ai Weiwei, along with former ambassador to China Uli Sigg, journalist Martin Meyer, and Jacques Herzog, discussed architecture's role in contemporary Chinese society as part of a panel hosted by Asia Society Switzerland.

Weiwei referred to architecture alongside any aesthetic discussions, as threatening to the sitting Chinese government: “The discussion does not benefit who is going to be profited. So authorities doesn’t like this kind of discussion — any discussion related to aesthetics. That means [conversation] about philosophy, legitimacy of power — then that’s very dangerous [to officials].”

Watch the panel discussion below.

More news on the world-famous dissident artist:

Ai Weiwei's latest works focus on refugee crisis in Greece

2016-05-23T17:23:00-04:00

the artist says we should not “sentimentalise or romanticise” the crisis, which has seen more than 2,000 children die on their way to Europe. [...] Ai first visited Lesbos on Christmas Day last year, and has since dedicated most of his life to helping refugees there, even moving his studio to the island. [...] “The goal is to make everyone conscious of the struggle of refugees. We need to protect humanity. The fight is endless. If we don’t fight, our children have to fight,” he says.

Related on Archinect:

Ai Weiwei documents life in Greek refugee camp on social media

2015-12-30T14:12:00-05:00

The Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei is visiting Lesbos to document the plight of thousands of refugees who arrive daily on the Greek island by boat from Turkey. For the past two days, Ai has been photographing orange rubber dinghies coming into shore, families huddled around fires, people queuing to register at the Moria refugee camp and piles of discarded lifejackets, among other scenes [...] It is understood Ai will be creating a work in response to the refugee crisis.

Here are just a few of Ai Weiwei's recent photos from the Lesbos refugee camp; giving a human face to people and entire families escaping war and persecution in their home countries of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, as well as documenting humanitarian workers, such as the Norwegian group, Drop in the Ocean.

All photos by Ai Weiwei via @aiww on Instagram.

Herzog & de Meuron named 2015 RIBA Jencks Award winners

2015-08-19T13:27:00-04:00

Herzog & de Meuron have the widest approach to architecture varying their style for each job. In this sense they epitomise the global search for an architecture of pluralism, one flexible enough for very different cultures...The high quality of the work is as notable as the wit; the amount of production as much as its personality. -RIBA President Stephen Hodder

Herzog & de Meuron, whose works include the recently approved yet controversial Tour Triangle in Paris and the redevelopment of Berlin's Tacheles cultural center, received the 2015 RIBA Jencks Award for being a practice "that has recently made a major contribution internationally to both the theory and practice of architecture." In a statement by RIBA President Stephen Hodder, he noted that "the contribution to our profession from Jacques and Pierre is constantly profound."

The award, which includes a £1,000 pound honorarium and the opportunity to deliver a lecture to RIBA chaired by Mr. Charles Jencks, will be officially presented on October 29th in London.

China appears to loosen strict exhibition ban on work by Ai Weiwei and other artists

2015-07-06T13:46:00-04:00

In Beijing, Ai Weiwei is back with a vengeance. The dissident Chinese artist has had four solo shows in the Chinese capital, ending an implicit exhibition ban that had been in place since his arrest in 2011. The fact that the shows, which opened in June, were permitted with minimal interference beyond one amended opening date surprised everyone, including Ai. “I never planned to have a few shows all at once,” Ai tells us.

Ai Weiwei, Jacob Appelbaum and the dissident experience

2015-04-28T20:20:00-04:00

It’s a Thursday morning in Beijing, and the world’s most famous living artist, Ai Weiwei, is sitting with one of the world’s most controversial technologists, Jacob Appelbaum, in the second-floor lobby of the East Hotel. [...] On a whim, Ai suggests that they call Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who has been living for the last two years at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. [...] Ai and Assange talk for several minutes about the mundanities of the dissident life.

Big businesses and baby steps: Weekly News Round-Up for September 22 and 29, 2014

2014-10-06T18:43:00-04:00

Friday, October 3:

Eisenhower Memorial clears key hurdle on Gehry design: In a positive step for the Memorial's Approving Process Odyssey, the National Capital Planning Commission has OK'd the Commission on Fine Arts (the other federal body that must approve the design) to vote on the Memorial.
Where are the women? Measuring progress on gender in architecture: A series of infographics on the representation of women in architectural practice and education, courtesy of ACSA.

Wednesday, October 1:

Guggenheim plans New York expansion… again: Not for more art space (Gehry tried that before) but for offices.
Zaera-Polo steps down as dean of Princeton's School of Architecture: From the press release: "the school's former dean, Professor Stanley T. Allen, will serve as acting dean until a permanent successor is appointed and that Professor Allen will chair the search for the new dean."
Tiny Spanish Island to be First Energy Self-Sufficient Island: The 10,000 population island will use renewable e...

Editor's Picks #387

2014-10-02T12:29:00-04:00

For the latest edition of Working out of the Box: Archinect talked with Adora Lo, Architect turned Pro LEGO Builder.

They discussed the "challenge of keeping it LEGO legal" and the satisfaction of designing a "Star Wars building in LEGO". midlander was impressed "That Boston model...The Lego version of 111 Huntington is nicer than the real one!"

Plus, Amelia Taylor-Hochberg shared the debut issue of ‘LOBBY ’, The Bartlett School of Architecture ’s new architecture magazine, for Screen/Print #25.

News
The National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) announced that it will be making significant changes to its Intern Development Program (IDP). Separate from other considerations to change the IDP's terminology, this decision chiefly includes two phases: (1) the removal of "elective" hourly requirements, and (2) condensing IDP's experience areas from the current 17 into six "practice-based categories".

The general consensus seemed to be underwhelmed - midlander quipped "So......

@Large: Ai Weiwei takes over Alcatraz with Lego carpets and a hippie dragon

2014-09-24T13:00:00-04:00

Welcome to prison, and a celebration of liberty. Ai Weiwei, the big man of Beijing, has spent years discovering pockets of freedom in the most straitened circumstances, resisting every effort by the Chinese government to shut him down. This week he opens a major new exhibition in a place that makes that resistance literal: on Alcatraz [...]. The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the planet. But this prison is decommissioned, and Ai is using it to extraordinary effect.

Art? An interview with Ai Weiwei

2014-05-06T15:54:00-04:00

Ai’s studio, called 258 Fake, has become China’s equivalent of Andy Warhol’s Factory. And Ai himself has increasingly taken on Warholian overtones: there is now little distinction between Ai the artist who creates artworks, and Ai the dissident who gets beaten by the cops. (In 2009, police pummelled his face, causing a cerebral haemorrhage.) Both are merged in an ongoing performance in which the man has become the art, and the art is the man.

Ai Weiwei Exhibition Underscores Dangers and Importance of Art

2014-04-03T15:23:00-04:00

A major exhibition opens in Berlin this week of the work of Ai Weiwei, China's most famous artist. Events like this are the very thing that protect him against further repression at home. The show is packed with moving works that are critical of the regime.

Miami Artist Destroyed $1M Ai Weiwei Vase Because PAMM "Only Displays International Artists"

2014-02-18T15:00:00-05:00

Yesterday, art lovers around the world were shocked when someone strolled into the Pérez Art Museum Miami and destroyed a $1 million vase by Ai Weiwei. [...] The vandal is actually Maximo Caminero, a well-known local painter who has shown works at the Fountain Art Fair. He tells New Times that he destroyed the vase to make a point.

"I did it for all the local artists in Miami that have never been shown in museums here," he says. "They have spent so many millions now on international artists. It's the same political situation over and over again. I've been here for 30 years and it's always the same."

Interview with Ai Weiwei: 'My Virtual Life Has Become My Real Life'

2014-01-15T14:11:00-05:00

In a SPIEGEL interview, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, 56, discusses how the authorities monitor his movements in sometimes bizarre detail and the feud with the government in Beijing that has kept him from being allowed to leave the country for three years now.

Rem Koolhaas, Ai Weiwei, Superflex and others take part in Gwangju Folly Project

2013-11-08T15:09:00-05:00

Architectural follies impose on our assumptions of what architecture is and what it should be -- what is function, what is beauty, where do private and public space meet. Gwangju Folly II, part of the Gwangju Biennale Foundation, highlights the politicization of public space through multiple folly-interventions in Gwangju. The project includes follies by Ai Weiwei, Rem Koolhaas and Ingo Niermann, Superflex, Raqs Media Collective, David Adjaye and Taiye Selasi, among others, this November 10-11.

Artistic Director Nikolaus Hirsch, with curators Philipp Misselwitz and Eui Young Chun, focus the follies on the contentiousness of public space, and its operation on the global scale. Positioned throughout the city, some follies are mobile (Ai Weiwei's "Cubic-meter Food Cart", a rumination on South Korea's pojangmachas) while others highly site-specific (Rem Koolhaas and Ingo Niermann's "The Vote" is installed in a high-traffic commercial area).

As the setting for Gwangju’s Democratic ...

Ai Weiwei’s Music Video, Recreating His Detention

2013-05-22T11:48:00-04:00

Now Mr. Ai is answering the guards’ request in a different key. He is presenting them, and the world, with his first heavy-metal music video, one with detailed re-creations of scenes from his 81 days of detention. He also portrays fantasies he imagines flitting through the guards’ minds. Mr. Ai posted the video on a Web site, aiweiwei.com, on Wednesday morning, Beijing time.

Ai Weiwei is featured on CBS News

2013-01-28T14:12:00-05:00

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has faced censorship and imprisonment by China's government. Rita Braver reports on a U.S. exhibit of the dissident's creations.

Ai Weiwei goes 'Gangnam Style' in video tribute to Psy

2012-10-24T19:16:00-04:00

One media zeitgeist meets another in a new video posted by artist Ai Weiwei showing himself dancing "Gangnam Style." Ai tweeted the video of himself on Wednesday dancing in the style of Korean pop star Psy's popular music video, which has become an international hit.