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Associated Press

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is putting on the biggest show of his career, and he is doing it in a place he’s fallen in love with: Portugal.
The world-renowned visual artist’s new exhibition, “Rapture”, opens in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Friday.
Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015.
“I have a great feeling” about Portugal, the artist said on Thursday. “This is a place I’m staying.”

Ai’s show in São Paulo in 2018 covered twice the area of the Lisbon exhibit but had fewer works on display.
“Rapture” is being presented in a long, low, riverside building that housed Portugal’s national rope factory starting in the 18th century and now hosts temporary art exhibitions. Ai’s show runs until November 28.
The 85 pieces include some of Ai’s iconic works, as well as new ones produced exclusively in Portugal.
Head of arts hub insists embattled museum never planned to show controversial photo
Forever Bicycles, from 2015, a giant sculpture using 960 stainless steel bicycles as building blocks, stands at the entrance to the building.
Ai’s 16-metre-long (52-foot-long) black inflatable boat with human figures, which alludes to the migration crisis, is also in Lisbon, as are some other of his well-known installations, sculptures, videos and photographs.
Ai noted, however, that most of the works “have never met each other” and are appearing in the same place for the first time.
Ai was arrested at Beijing’s airport in April 2011 and held for 81 days without explanation during a wider crackdown on dissent. He moved to Europe after Chinese authorities returned his passport.

He has travelled across Portugal visiting craftspeople and manufacturers who use traditional Portuguese methods and materials such as marble, textiles, hand-painted tiles and cork.
His experimentation has yielded a self-portrait sculpture in cork, a cut-out world map in fabric that stands about 1.5 metres (5 feet) high, a 40-metre-long (130-feet-long) rug, and a marble cylinder almost 2 metres (6.5 feet) high.
Ai Weiwei on living in exile, activism and a secret Wuhan film
Marcello Dantas, the show’s Brazilian curator, said that Ai arrived in Portugal for the first time in 2019 on a flight that landed at 8am. By lunchtime, he had bought a house near the farming town of Montemor-o-Novo, about 100km (60 miles) southeast of Lisbon
“I always make decisions by my personal instinct,” Ai said. “I feel comfortable here.”
The artist ticked off what appeals to him about the country: the relatively slow pace of life, the “very open” people, the “very acceptable” food and the abundant sunshine.

Ai said the limits on movement during the Covid-19 pandemic furnished him with “a most productive time”. Over the past year or so, he made three feature-length films in addition to art pieces.
He has a book coming out later this year and another exhibition planned for this summer in the northern Portuguese city of Porto.
Remaining in Portugal was “probably the best decision I ever made”, he said.


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Ai Weiwei

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei picks Portugal for new show, new home

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei poses at his exhibition “Rapture” at the Cordoaria Nacional exhibition centre in Lisbon on Thursday. Photo: AFP

epaselect epa09245403 An installation titled 'Law of the Journey' by Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei, showing an inflatable boat with faceless refugee figures, is on display in his first exhibition in Portugal, titled 'Rapture,' at the Cordoaria Nacional in Lisbon, Portugal, 03 June 2021. The show will run from 04 June to 28 November 2021. EPA-EFE/MIGUEL A. LOPES

People visit Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's exhibition "Rapture" at the Cordoaria Nacional exhibition centre in Lisbon on June 3, 2021. - A cork statue, a panel of 'azulejos' or a roll of marble toilet paper: the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei offers Lisbon an immersion in his universe through his great classics but also new creations to pay tribute to Portugal where he took hold just before the Covid-19 pandemic. (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY MENTION OF THE ARTIST UPON PUBLICATION - TO ILLUSTRATE THE EVENT AS SPECIFIED IN THE CAPTION

epa09245404 A diorama installation by Chinese contemporary artist and activist Ai Weiwei, showing the artist and his prison guards during Weiwei's time in Chinese prison, is on display in his first exhibition in Portugal, titled 'Rapture,' at the Cordoaria Nacional in Lisbon, Portugal, 03 June 2021. The show will run from 04 June to 28 November 2021. EPA-EFE/MIGUEL A. LOPES

Ai Weiwei makes art face masks for charity,  says: ‘A society that wears masks because of the choices of individuals can defy any force’

Some of the masks designed by Ai Weiwei for charity.

Face masks designed and produced by Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. Proceeds from their sale will support the work of international humanitarian organisations.

Ai Weiwei on living in exile, his artistic reaction to coronavirus and making a secret Wuhan film

Ai Weiwei’s life and work is the focus of a new documentary, Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, released earlier this month. Photo: AFP

Screengrabs from documentary Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly, released earlier July 2020 from First Run Features. The film, directed by Cheryl Haines, co-directed by Gina Leibrecht and available to stream through select theater cinema websites in the US, explores the Chinese artist and human rights activistÕs 2014 public art intervention, @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz. And it has much to say about prisoners of conscience and the role of art in both promoting freedom of expression and providing salve to the wrongfully incarcerated.[28JULY2020 FEATURES]  CREDIT: First Run Features

Masks designed by Ai Weiwei for charity

Move over, Ai Weiwei – 5 Chinese contemporary artists who are making a splash around the world

Chinese multimedia artist Lu Yang’s award-winning Human Machine Reverse Motion Capture Project, which impressed at March’s Art Basel Hong Kong 2019.

XU ZHEN®, Nirvana, 2019. Photo Anders Modig | FOR STYLE ONE TIME USE ONLY

Paul Chan, Variations on 5.01. Photo: Anders Modig | FOR STYLE ONE TIME USE ONLY

Lawrence Lek. Nøtel (The Hague), 2018 [still] HD Video, stereo sound. Duration: 19 min 30 sec. Copyright Lawrence Lek, courtesy of the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. | FOR STYLE USE ONLY

Lu Yang, Human Machine Reverse Motion Capture Project | FOR STYLE USE ONLY

Xinyi Cheng, It is hard to stop. Photo: Anders Modig | FOR STYLE ONE TIME USE ONLY

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The biggest exhibition of his career, Rapture, opens in Lisbon on Friday
Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015



The biggest exhibition of his career, Rapture, opens in Lisbon on Friday; Ai says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China.


Chinese overseas

Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei picks Portugal for new show, new home

The biggest exhibition of his career, Rapture, opens in Lisbon on Friday Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015

The biggest exhibition of his career, Rapture, opens in Lisbon on Friday

Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015