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This book accompanies the exhibitions Ai Weiwei: The Art of Defiance at Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (September 19 – November 14) and Ai Weiwei: Life – Revolt – Poetry at the Emile Verhaeren Museum, Sint-Amands, Belgium (September 21– December 13)
Architect, curator, writer, publisher, filmmaker, collector, social critic, internet pioneer, intellectual and, perhaps, above all, an artist, Ai Weiwei straddles art forms as well as the East and the West.
For many of us, he shot to fame for daring to raise his middle finger, as this book documents, to the oppression of Chinese authorities.
Ever political, one of his immediate concerns is to remind us, if we need it, that censorship is not confined to the more obviously totalitarian regimes.
In his extended essay “On Censorship,” published in 2026, he reflects on how democratic societies, including in the West, limit freedom of expression and survey their citizens.
Belgian gallerist Edouard Derom, who is hosting Belgium’s first major exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s works, tells us his father, Patrick, founder of the Patrick Derom Gallery in Brussels, first suggested the gallery should host an Ai Weiwei exhibition.
Edouard Derom might not have dared until it became clear to him that bigger Belgian institutions were not rising to the challenge, meaning he could take it up.
More than two years of research later, the exhibition is a reality, along with another at the Emile Verhaeren Museum, also in Belgium, in acknowledgement of the relationship between the country and Ai Weiwei whose father, the poet Ai Qing, translated Vehaeren’s poetry. To accompany both exhibitions, one Hannibal Book does justice to Ai Weiwei’s defiant artistry with meticulously reproduced photographs of his work and a series of essays, including by Edouard Derom.
Derom analyses the studio as an art form in itself and a reminder of the fragility of all the structures that regimes can ruthlessly destroy and the power of artists to preserve them.
Ai Weiwei’s studio in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, was built from beams and joints crafted in China. It is immortalised in nine small-scale replicas displayed on the shipping crates used for transport and part of the biography of the studios – art, like humans, spends much of its time in transit.
From assembling studios shipped in pieces, it’s an easy transition to using LEGO bricks as social commentary.
John Tancock is an authority on the subject and his essay for this book documents Ai Weiwei’s use of LEGO, including for the 2014 exhibition “Trace”, in which LEGO bricks were used to create the images of 176 political prisoners, activists, and exiles that were laid out in the former prison of Alcatraz.
“I think LEGO is no different from Rembrandt’s paint or Van Gogh’s paint. If they were alive today, they would love to play LEGOs,” Ai Weiwei is quoted as saying. We cannot know whether their use would have been as politically engaged as Ai Weiwei’s.
Whatever medium he uses, Ai Weiwei places the focus on quality as the antithesis of the cheap mass reproduction associated with modern China; as the flipside of his iconoclasm, he represents continuity with China’s traditional craftsmanship.
Derom, who studied alongside Lee Ambrozy at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, presents her as one of the best people to help us understand Ai Weiwei’s cultural roots through her essay that situates him within Chinese intellectual traditions.
The standout example she draws on is his exhibition “Sunflower Seeds” at the Tate Modern, London, in 2010.
Ambrozy divides Ai Weiwei’s work into categories and places “Sunflower Seeds” in the category of accumulation. They are a metaphor for humanity. They also stand for mass production, for individuals and craftsmanship.
During the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, Chinese state propaganda drew on sun imagery to depict Chairman Mao Zedong and the Chinese citizenry as loyal sunflowers turning toward him.
The 150 tons of porcelain seeds, hand-made by 1,600 skilled artisans from Jingdezhen, the historic capital of Chinese porcelain manufacture, turn the emphasis onto the enduring, individual human workers of whom Ai Weiwei is one.
Ai Weiwei,
Hannibal Books
This book accompanies the exhibitions Ai Weiwei: The Art of Defiance at Patrick Derom Gallery, Brussels, Belgium (September 19 – November 14) and Ai Weiwei: Life – Revolt – Poetry at the Emile Verhaeren Museum, Sint-Amands, Belgium (September 21– December 13)
Architect, curator, writer, publisher, filmmaker, collector, social critic, internet pioneer, intellectual and, perhaps, above all, an artist, Ai Weiwei straddles art forms as well as the East and the West.
For many of us, he shot to fame for daring to raise his middle finger, as this book documents, to the oppression of Chinese authorities.
Ever political, one of his immediate concerns is to remind us, if we need it, that censorship is not confined to the more obviously totalitarian regimes.
In his extended essay “On Censorship,” published in 2026, he reflects on how democratic societies, including in the West, limit freedom of expression and survey their citizens.
Belgian gallerist Edouard Derom, who is hosting Belgium’s first major exhibition of Ai Weiwei’s works, tells us his father, Patrick, founder of the Patrick Derom Gallery in Brussels, first suggested the gallery should host an Ai Weiwei exhibition.
Edouard Derom might not have dared until it became clear to him that bigger Belgian institutions were not rising to the challenge, meaning he could take it up.
More than two years of research later, the exhibition is a reality, along with another at the Emile Verhaeren Museum, also in Belgium, in acknowledgement of the relationship between the country and Ai Weiwei whose father, the poet Ai Qing, translated Vehaeren’s poetry. To accompany both exhibitions, one Hannibal Book does justice to Ai Weiwei’s defiant artistry with meticulously reproduced photographs of his work and a series of essays, including by Edouard Derom.
Derom analyses the studio as an art form in itself and a reminder of the fragility of all the structures that regimes can ruthlessly destroy and the power of artists to preserve them.
Ai Weiwei’s studio in Montemor-o-Novo, Portugal, was built from beams and joints crafted in China. It is immortalised in nine small-scale replicas displayed on the shipping crates used for transport and part of the biography of the studios – art, like humans, spends much of its time in transit.
From assembling studios shipped in pieces, it’s an easy transition to using LEGO bricks as social commentary.
John Tancock is an authority on the subject and his essay for this book documents Ai Weiwei’s use of LEGO, including for the 2014 exhibition “Trace”, in which LEGO bricks were used to create the images of 176 political prisoners, activists, and exiles that were laid out in the former prison of Alcatraz.
“I think LEGO is no different from Rembrandt’s paint or Van Gogh’s paint. If they were alive today, they would love to play LEGOs,” Ai Weiwei is quoted as saying. We cannot know whether their use would have been as politically engaged as Ai Weiwei’s.
Whatever medium he uses, Ai Weiwei places the focus on quality as the antithesis of the cheap mass reproduction associated with modern China; as the flipside of his iconoclasm, he represents continuity with China’s traditional craftsmanship.
Derom, who studied alongside Lee Ambrozy at the Institute of Fine Arts in New York, presents her as one of the best people to help us understand Ai Weiwei’s cultural roots through her essay that situates him within Chinese intellectual traditions.
The standout example she draws on is his exhibition “Sunflower Seeds” at the Tate Modern, London, in 2010.
Ambrozy divides Ai Weiwei’s work into categories and places “Sunflower Seeds” in the category of accumulation. They are a metaphor for humanity. They also stand for mass production, for individuals and craftsmanship.
During the Cultural Revolution of 1966–1976, Chinese state propaganda drew on sun imagery to depict Chairman Mao Zedong and the Chinese citizenry as loyal sunflowers turning toward him.
The 150 tons of porcelain seeds, hand-made by 1,600 skilled artisans from Jingdezhen, the historic capital of Chinese porcelain manufacture, turn the emphasis onto the enduring, individual human workers of whom Ai Weiwei is one.
Barbara Lewis © 2026.
By Barbara Lewis • added recently on London Grip, art, art archive, books, drawing, painting • Tags: art, art archive, Barbara Lewis, books, painting