Ai Weiwei's Blog ─ Writings, Interviews, and Digital Rants, 2006-2009

In 2006, even though he could barely type, China's most famous artist startedblogging. For more than three years, Ai Weiwei turned out a steady stream of scathing socialcommentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographicalwritings. He wrote about the Sichuan earthquake (and posted a list of the schoolchildren who diedbecause of the government's "tofu-dregs engineering"), reminisced about Andy Warhol andthe East Village art scene, described the irony of being investigated for "fraud" by theMinistry of Public Security, made a modest proposal for tax collection. Then, on June 1, 2009,Chinese authorities shut down the blog. This book offers a collection of Ai's notorious onlinewritings translated into English--the most complete, public documentation of the original Chineseblog available in any language.The New York Times called Ai "a figure of Warholiancelebrity." He is a leading figure on the international art scene, a regular in museums andbiennials, but in China he is a manifold and controversial presence: artist, architect, curator,social critic, justice-seeker. He was a consultant on the design of the famous "Bird'sNest" stadium but called for an Olympic boycott; he received a Chinese Contemporary Art"lifetime achievement award" in 2008 but was beaten by the police in connection with his"citizen investigation" of earthquake casualties in 2009. Ai Weiwei's Blog documents Ai'spassion, his genius, his hubris, his righteous anger, and his vision for China.

Lee Ambrozy is the Editor of Artforum's Chinese language website.