Artist warns against Trump

JERUSALEM — Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei is encouraging people across the world to challenge their leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump, in order to fend off what he said are threats to basic human values posed by governments.

In Israel for the opening of his first exhibition in the Mideast country, the controversial artist, whose work often deals with the grim side of human nature, said people are locked in an almost permanent battle with their leaders and governments.

“Trump himself has to be challenged,” he said. “You can recognize it’s happening. It’s not so easy.”

Ai spoke at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, where his exhibit Maybe, Maybe Not, opened on Friday.

He stood on his artwork titled Soft Ground, a hand woven 250-square-metre carpet that replicates the floor of Munich’s Haus der Kunst, the gallery where Nazi-approved artwork was displayed during the Third Reich.

He insisted people need to challenge authority in every way to protect their gained freedoms, but conceded that this would be difficult.

“Any political struggle takes both sides,” Weiwei told the Associated Press at the museum. “There are people defending those values and there are people who are always trying to take away some of the most important values of our lives.”

The exhibition gathers a series of installation works, including Sunflower Seeds, a collection of millions of handcrafted and painted porcelain seeds that is meant to critique China’s modernday mass-production methods that have overwhelmed traditional manufacturing and handicraft.

Ai was in Gaza in 2016 to shoot a documentary film, Human Flow, about the plight of refugees that will be released for distribution globally this summer.