With a life as transparently lived as that of Ai Weiwei—the artist who began making international waves through his innovative use of social media around 2006, via the Chinese Sina Weibo network—it’s hard to keep anything a secret from the public. Or rather, he doesn’t even really keep secrets. Ai has been very vocal about everything just short of his bowel movements since the Chinese government began considering him a threat to national security sometime in the early 2000s. So we decided to challenge ourselves a little bit: what don’t we know about Ai Weiwei? That was our mission here, as we celebrate the 8th anniversary of his first blog post today. Here are 20 Things You Didn’t Know About Ai Wewei.
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20. He doesn't consider himself a "Chinese artist."
19. He returned to China on his father's dying request.
18. He breaks more than Han Dynasty vases.
17. The Beijing Olympic Stadium he designed was modeled after a toilet seat.
16. His name is blocked across Sina Weibo, the Chinese social media site.
15. There was a play about him this year.
14. He contributed to a book by Hans-Ulrich Obrist to teach us how to disable surveillance cameras.
13. Though friends with the late poet, he never read Allen Ginsberg's work.
12. He's one of the worst barbers in the world.
11. Elton John dedicated a show to him, causing a concert crackdown in China.
10. He could give a shit what his work sells for.
9. He spent his youth in desert exile.
8. His dad was a close follower of Mao Zedong.
7. There's an asteroid named after him.
6. He helped design a pavilion for Serpentine Galleries.
5. He never used a computer before 2005.
4. There were 4 real sunflower seeds in the 100 million porcelain ones of his Tate Modern exhibition.
During the exhibition of his Sunflower Seeds piece, which consisted of 100 Million handmade and painted porcelain sunflower seeds, a conceptual art group called IOCOSE added four actual sunflower seeds to the artwork. Four IOCOSE members bought a cheap bag of sunflower seeds at a nearby shop, went to the balcony overlooking Ai's sunflower seeds in the Turbine Hall of the museum. They then launched one seed each into the bed of millions using slingshots. Directly following, they modified the signs in the hall and renamed the piece to "IOCOSE's Sunflower Seeds on Sunflower Seeds." The new artwork was indistinguishable from the previous artwork, reemphasizing something Ai himself said: "What you see is not what you see, and what you see is not what it means."