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What You Need to Know: In San Gimignano, Italy, Galleria Continua is currently presenting a sweeping solo exhibition of Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei, “Neither Nor.” On view through September 1, 2024, the show features work dating from 1995 through today, with a special emphasis on new and recent work the artist has made using toy Lego bricks. The venue, which was in its previous life a cinema theater, is entirely transformed with Ai Weiwei’s work, which includes everything from large-scale installations to intimately-scaled smaller works. Together, the show traces the artist’s practice and career over the course of nearly three decades, and offers a glimpse of what may come next.
Why We Like It: A true multi-hyphenate, the extraordinary breadth of Ai Weiwei’s practice is fully explored in “Neither Nor,” featuring iconic historical imagery such as the artist dropping a historic urn to recent projects that see the artist crafting complex compositions using Lego bricks. The first floor of the gallery presents a comprehensive survey of these assembled toy brick works—the first survey of its kind—dated from between 2019 and 2023. Approaching the objects similarly to pixels, the artist appropriates, distorts, and reinterprets images and artworks through the novel medium. Elsewhere in the show, he engages with themes and ideas around culture and politics, perception and understanding, as well as human rights and freedom, all of which he has continually mined in his work throughout his career. The show is not only a testament to Ai Weiwei’s ground breaking career, but a deep dive into his core motivations and creative practice.
According to the Artist: “In the current era we find ourselves faced with a cultural panorama that tends towards extremes, where everything is reduced to a binary choice between black and white. This trend is deeply backward and troubling and is reminiscent of authoritarian periods in history, such as the first Soviet purges, the McCarthy era in the United States, the Cultural Revolution in China, and the rise of Nazism in the 1930s and 1940s. Times in which, not only were human rights seriously violated, but also the very essence of human nature and the collective beliefs of ordinary people were profoundly damaged. The title ‘Neither Nor,’ is intended to convey that, in most cases, our thinking is not limited to absolute truths or single interpretations, but rather exists in a state of ambiguity that allows for greater possibilities and debate. It is within this state of ambiguity that human thought and culture, including art, finds the environment and space to thrive. As a result, it is often difficult to provide definitive yes or no answers; regardless of the answer, there is a strong sense of exclusivity and a lack of tolerance for alternative perspectives.” —Ai Weiwei
See inside the exhibition and featured works below.
Ai Weiwei, To keep a person ignorant is to place them in a cage (2023). Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Ai weiwei studio and Galleria Continua.
Installation view of “Ai Weiwei: Neither Nor” (2024). Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio and Galleria Continua.
Installation view of “Ai Weiwei: Neither Nor” (2024). Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio and Galleria Continua.
Ai Weiwei, Last U.S. Soldier Leaving Afghanistan (2022). Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Ai weiwei studio and Galleria Continua.
Ai Weiwei, Untitled (After Van Gogh) (2020). Photo: Ela Bialkowska, OKNO Studio. Courtesy of Ai weiwei studio and Galleria Continua.
“Ai Weiwei: Neither Nor” is on view at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano, Italy, through September 1, 2024.