Ai Weiwei on his Activism and Detention in China- Hirshhorn Museum
Description:
Ai Weiwei discusses his own experiences of incarceration, interrogation, and surveillance. In 2011, he was detained by the Chinese government for eighty-one days and then prohibited from traveling abroad until 2015. In 2012, the Hirshhorn opened Ai’s first major US retrospective exhibition, “Ai Weiwei: According to What?,” which he was unable to attend. In conjunction with the opening of his major new exhibition, “Ai Weiwei: Trace at Hirshhorn,” the Museum hosted Ai in conversation with Hirshhorn director Melissa Chiu for the annual James T. Demetrion Lecture. This annual program is made possible by the Friends of Jim and Barbara Demetrion Endowment Fund, established in 2001 to celebrate Jim Demetrion’s seventeen-year tenure as the Hirshhorn’s second director.
