Ai Weiwei has taken over Manchester’s Aviva Studios for Ai WeiWei: Button Up!, the artist’s largest site-specific exhibition to date, which launches to the public tomorrow.
Monumental in scale and ambition, the site-specific exhibition explores the legacies of British imperialism, Chinese and British relations and the rise of globalisation. It spans the breadth of Ai Weiwei’s artistic practice, bringing together monumental sculpture, painting, ceramics, film and live performance.
Weiwei said: “I’m not interested in making very big things just for the sake of it. But in Manchester, that wonderful Warehouse space calls for monumental work. Visiting the city for this exhibition – the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution – and reflecting on Britain’s global territorial expansion made me realise I had to explore that history and understand how it connects to the forces driving today’s wars and global crises. The world today is deeply divided, with tragedy all around. Understanding history goes hand in hand with standing up for truth and justice.”
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The exhibition features two new commissions created for the vast Warehouse space of Factory International’s home Aviva Studios:
- Eight-Nation Alliance Flags is a monumental work of eight flags, each made up of nearly half a million buttons. It centres on the history of the early 20th-century invasion of China by the Eight-Nation Alliance: Britain; France; United States of America; Germany; Japan; Russia; Italy; and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The artist bought 30 tonnes of buttons from A Brown & Co Buttons in Croydon when it was closing down in 2019. Millions of buttons were sent to China, where 4 million were used to create the flags.
- History of Bombs is a colossal new toy brick mural that features life-size models of conventional weapons and weapons of mass destruction. At 25-metres wide and 10-metres high, and featuring 3.5 million toy bricks, it is Ai Weiwei’s largest ever toy brick artwork. The work is a development of the History of Bombs (2019) installation that was first displayed the Imperial War Museum London in 2020. The artwork was made by volunteers in Manchester and craftspeople in China.
The new commissions sit alongside large-scale works by the artist which are going on show in the UK for the first time: Law of the Journey (2017), a 49m long inflatable migrant boat containing hundreds of human figures and the artist’s largest artwork to date; Wang Family Ancestral Hall (2015), a Ming dynasty ancestral temple reassembled from 1,500 individual wooden pieces; and La Commedia Umana (2017-21), a black Murano glass chandelier made up of over 2,000 pieces and weighing nearly 3 tonnes. Also on show is Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (2010), a re-envisioning of the twelve animals of the Chinese zodiac. The exhibition offers a unique chance for audiences to experience Ai Weiwei’s large-scale artworks together in one space.
As part of Ai Weiwei: Button Up! the artist will present a unique 24-hour performance piece called Sewing a Button from 3 to 4 July. The work will give audiences an unflinching look at Ai Weiwei’s secret detention by Public Security in China in 2011 and is the first time the artist has reenacted his experience live. Sewing a Button marks the 15th anniversary of Ai Weiwei’s secret detention by Public Security for 81 days in 2011, and audiences will be able to watch Ai Weiwei sleep, eat, exercise, write, wash and be interrogated. Elements of the footage will be shown in screens around Aviva Studios, as well as broadcast online to reach audiences around the world.
Taking inspiration from Manchester, a city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, Ai Weiwei: Button Up! explores how historic systems of trade, empire and exploitation resonate in today’s humanitarian and political crises. Both global and personal, the title Button Up! is a playful poke at the artist’s ongoing battle with censorship. The exhibition incorporates a wide range of materials associated with both craft and industry including antique timber, porcelain, cotton, glass and bronze.
John McGrath, artistic director and chief executive, Factory International, added: “Factory International is thrilled to present this major exhibition by Ai Weiwei and we look forward to welcoming visitors this summer. Having the largest works of Ai Weiwei’s career shown alongside each other would only be possible in the vast, flexible space of Aviva Studios, and we are delighted that this extraordinary artist has responded so brilliantly to our venue.”
Check the Factory International site for full listings, prices and special events including Sewing a Button and artist talks.
