Chinese government returns passport to celebrated artist and dissident Ai Weiwei

by Charlie Smith on July 23rd, 2015 at 2:36 PM

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China's most famous contemporary artist can now leave the country.

Ai Weiwei, whose art has been displayed in Vancouver on several occasions, received a Chinese passport this week.

It means he's permitted to travel abroad for the first time in four years.

The Canadian Journalists for Free Expression has reported that Ai plans to go to Germany to visit his son. That will be followed by a trip to London for his show at the Royal Academy of Arts.

https://instagram.com/p/5bdSb1qD6e/?taken-by=aiww

"Following his arrest in April 2011, during which time the artist was held for 81 days in solitary confinement, his travel documents were confiscated and he was prohibited from leaving the country," Canadian Journalists for Free Expression international programs coordinator Alexandra Zakreski wrote on her organization's website.

"While he was told by interrogators at the time that he was being investigated on charges of 'inciting subversion of state power,' upon his release to house arrest he was formally charged with a variety of spurious offences, including tax evasion and bigamy; these charges were widely condemned as being politically motivated," Zakreski added.

Last year, the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery at UBC's Point Grey campus hosted Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993.

Straight visual-arts critic Robin Laurence noted that Ai "personally selected the 227 black-and-white photos (from some 10,000 negatives)" that were exhibited in the gallery.

In 2014 and 2015, the Vancouver Art Gallery hosted a major exhibition of Chinese art that included the work of Ai, among others.

The Vancouver Art Gallery showcased Ai Weiwei's Bang, which features 886 wooden stools.

And last December, Vancouver Biennale launched Ai's sculpture, F Grass, at Harbour Green Park on the edge of Coal Harbour.

"Both grass and the F-word are recurring motifs in Ai’s recent life and work," Laurence wrote in the Straight. "His studio is located in Cao-changdi, an outlying district of Beijing whose name means 'grassy field'. In 2000, Ai cocurated an exhibition in Shanghai provocatively titled Fuck Off; coinciding with the third Shanghai Biennale, it drew worldwide attention to the man who is now China’s most famous contemporary artist."