5 Things You Need To Know About Ai Weiwei, "The World's Most Powerful Artist"

Image via Complex Original

Earlier this week, Art Review named Ai Weiwei the world's "most powerful artist." Known as much for his art — particularly covering the Tate Modern's Turbine Hall with porcelain sunflower seeds and consulting on Beijing's Olympic Stadium (The Birdcage) — as for his social activism, Ai Weiwei embraces the internet like no artist before. He's only the second arist to top the Power 100 list (after Damien Hirst), which ranks the most influential people in contemporary art.

Complex connected with Alison Klayman, director of the documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, to get the important facts about the world's "most powerful artist."

Here are the 5 things you need to know about Ai Weiwei.

1. Ai Weiwei is humble

Though recently named the most powerful person in the art world by ArtReview magazine, Ai Weiwei doesn't buy into the hype. "Maybe being powerful means to be fragile," he told BBC News.

2. Ai Weiwei is a champion of the people

Despite Ai Weiwei's 81-day detainment and subsequent house arrest in Beijing, he continues to support other oppressed voices, including free speech advocate Ran Yunfei, activist Wang Lihong, and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. Through it all, he is still a hooligan at heart. Upon joining Google+ in July 2011, he identified himself as a "suspected pornography enthusiast and tax evader." Says Ai, "Humor is important. It helps you deal with immense pressure and uncertainty. It brings you back to the ordinary."

3. Ai Weiwei is a social media genius

With the Chinese government restricting Ai Weiwei's use of social media these days, the best way to follow breaking news about the artist's latest provocations is to follow the upcoming documentary feature Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry on Twitter and Facebook.  Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry is the first feature-length documentary to go inside his world and tell the story of how China's preeminent contemporary artist became its most outspoken domestic critic.  Directed by Alison Klayman (one of Filmmaker Magazine's '25 New Faces of Independent Film), the documentary is currently in post-production and slated for a 2012 release.

4. Ai Weiwei goes big

One year ago this time, Ai Weiwei paved the Turbine Hall of London's Tate Museum with 100 million handcrafted porcelain sunflower seeds. Porcelain is nearly synonymous with China, and the exhibit invited people to take a closer look at the 'Made in China' phenomenon. "From a very young age, I started to sense that an individual has to set an example in society," he has said. "Your own acts and behavior tell the world who you are and at the same time what kind of society you think it should be."

5. Ai Weiwei detainment by the Chinese government made him famous in America

Although his Sunflower Seeds exhibit at Tate made Ai Weiwei a household name in the UK, he officially entered the American zeitgeist when he was featured on the Colbert Report last May.  Stephen had filmmaker Klayman on as a guest to discuss Ai's unlawful detainment, and to crack jokes about the Beijing Olympics.  You can see the full version of the Never Sorry trailer featured on Colbert at www.aiweiweifilm.org.