Ai Weiwei given freedom to fly to Britain for show
Dissident artist will attend his Royal Academy show, which coincides with state visit by China’s president
China has returned the passport of the dissident artist Ai Weiwei more than four years after it was confiscated following his 81-day secret detention. He should now be able to attend a retrospective of his work at London’s Royal Academy of Arts in September.
CHINA has returned the passport of Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist barred from leaving the country for the past four years, enabling him to visit London for the opening of his landmark Royal Academy retrospective.
Ai was detained without charge for 81 days in 2011 and held mainly in solitary confinement, sparking an international outcry.
He was later released but faced a £1.5 million fine for alleged tax evasion. Although he was allowed to travel within China, more than a dozen surveillance cameras were trained on his Beijing studio.
The artist’s Royal Academy show is scheduled to run from Sept 19 to Dec 13, coinciding with a state visit by Chinese president Xi Jinping in October. Ai’s non-attendance at the exhibition
‘I was quite frustrated when my right to travel was taken … now I feel much more positive about my condition’
would have generated unwanted headlines during the trip, when President Xi will be a guest at Buckingham Palace.
The bearded conceptualist published a photograph of himself clutching a red Chinese passport on his Instagram account yesterday, with the words: “Today, I received a passport.”
The 57-year-old added: “They’ve said they would return me my passport for many years. They’ve never said they would never give it to me, except that it has dragged on for four years.”
He could not say what had prompted the authorities to take the decision, but “now that they’ve let me go abroad, I believe they will let me return home”. His first foreign trip will be to see his son, who lives in Berlin.
Ai, who enjoys great popularity in Britain, designed the Bird’s Nest stadium for the 2008 Beijing Olympics and filled Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall with ceramic sunflower seeds for an exhibition.
A staunch critic of China’s human rights records, recent works that will feature in his Royal Academy show include Remains (2015), consisting of porcelain replicas of bones discovered during an archaeological dig in Xinjiang province thought to be those of an unknown individual who died in a labour camp. Ai’s father, a celebrated poet, was sent to one such camp with his family in the Fifties.
Tim Marlow, the artistic director of the RA, welcomed Beijing’s decision. “This is wonderful news for Ai Weiwei, his family and for artists worldwide.
“We are delighted to announce that he will be joining us as we finalise the installation of his exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.”
The RA recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise £100,000 towards the installation of Ai’s tree sculpture in the courtyard outside the gallery.
His outspoken criticism of China’s ruling Communist party has seen his work censored domestically.
But last month authorities allowed his first solo exhibition in the country to open in Beijing. It consisted of a reconstructed 400-year-old wooden ancestral hall.
Although the show lacked Ai’s usual political commentary, the state-run
Global Times newspaper in an editorial called on him to “change his politics”.
The return of Ai’s passport comes nearly two weeks after Beijing launched one of its most comprehensive crackdowns on civil society in decade.
At least 238 people were detained or questioned, according to the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyer Concern Group.
More than 20 are believed to be still under some form of detention, including the human rights lawyers Sui Muqing and Xie Yang, who are facing charges of “inciting subversion”, which could see them jailed for up to 15 years.
The whereabouts of six of the 20 people thought still to be in custody re- main a mystery, according to activists.
Chinese authorities often deny passports to dissidents who might embarrass the ruling Communist Party overseas.
“When I got it back I felt my heart was at peace,” the artist said yesterday.
“I was quite frustrated when my right to travel was taken away, but now I feel much more positive about my condition.
He added: “I think they should have given it back some time ago – and maybe after so many years they understand me better.”