An autobiography in pictures: photographs taken by Ai Weiwei that capture his emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today.
The book is a sequel to Ai Weiwei: New York 1983-1993, a privately published book that collected photographs taken by Ai during his years on the New York art scene..
It includes a shattering series of photographs taken between 1993 and 1996 devoted to the final illness and death of Ai\'s father Ai Qing.
The book contains more than 600 carefully sequenced images culled from an archive of more than 40,000 photographs taken by Ai: a narrative arc carefully shaped by an artist keenly aware of photography\'s ability to tell stories.
There is no more revealing portrait of Ai Weiwei\'s life in China than this.
The photographs capture Ai\'s emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today.
This book, prohibited from publication in China, offers an intimate look at Ai Weiwei\'s world in the years after his return from New York and preceding his imprisonment and global superstardom.
Against a backdrop of strict censorship, Ai has become a hero on social media to millions of Chinese citizens.
Since then, Ai Weiwei\'s critiques of China\'s repressive regime have ranged from playful photographs of his raised middle finger in front of Tiananmen Square to searing memorials to the more than 5,000 schoolchildren who died in shoddy government construction in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
In April 2011, when Ai disappeared into police custody for three months, he quickly became the art world\'s most famous missing person.
Ai Weiwei is China\'s most celebrated contemporary artist, and its most outspoken domestic critic.
Ai Weiwei: Beijing Photographs 1993-2003 is an autobiography in pictures.
An autobiography in pictures: photographs taken by Ai Weiwei that capture his emergence as the uniquely provocative artist that he is today
