The son of poet Ai Qing, he founded the avant-garde group Stars in 1978. In 1982 he moved to New York, where he attended Parsons school of design and gained notoriety as a conceptual artist. He returned to China in 1993 and introduced New York art experiences there; he published three works concerning the new generation of Chinese artists: Black cover book (1994), White cover book (1995) and Grey cover book (1997). In 2000, he founded the architectural firm FAKE Design, and in 2003, together with Herzog & de Meuron, he was the artistic consultant for the design of the Beijing Olympic National Stadium. Major exhibitions of his work include Interlacing (Paris, Jeu de Paume) and the solo exhibition According to what? (Washington, Hirshhorn Museum), both in 2012, and the exhibition Evidence, hosted in 2014 at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. Also from 2012 are A. Klayman’s documentary film Ai Weiwei: never sorry and the text Weiweisms, a collection of aphorisms on art and politics, while 2015 saw the exhibition The Enchanted Garden held at Palazzo Te in Mantua, in which the artist dialogues with the Italian Renaissance in 46 previously unseen works. In 2015, the artist inaugurated the Ai Weiwei exhibition in Beijing, in which he reconstructed the reception hall of an elite dwelling of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644); in the same year, a solo exhibition of his work was set up at the Royal Academy of Arts in London, while a 2016 exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence, and a 2017 Odyssey, wallpaper on floor exhibited at ZAC – Zisa Zona Arti Contemporanee in Palermo, is the case. Author of the autobiographical text 1000 years of joys and sorrows (2021), in 2022 the artist made his debut in opera directing with Turandot, performed at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome. The artist is the author of the intense autobiographical text 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows.