Where is Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist?

Portrait Ai WeiWei Beijing 2005

Photo: Paul Donker Duyvis
International effort to call for the release of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese Conceptual artist who was taken into police custody in Beijing after he was detained on Sunday April, 3 2011, while trying to board a flight for Hong Kong...

Ai Weiwei is one of China's most prominent and provocative artists with a rising profile in the architecture world. Mr. Ai helped design the Olympic National Stadium known as the Bird's Nest for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

Known for his sharp tongue, Mr. Ai is one of the most outspoken critics of the Chinese Communist Party. He has demanded democracy in China, criticized government corruption for playing a role in the deaths of schoolchildren in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and stridently supported Liu Xiaobo, a political prisoner who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010.

In January 2011, Mr. Ai’s studio, which was to be used as an education center and a site for artists in residence, was demolished. Mr. Ai believed that his advocacy in two causes might have prompted Shanghai officials to order the razing. The first was that of Yang Jia, a Beijing resident who killed six policemen in a Shanghai police station after being arrested and beaten for riding an unlicensed bicycle. Mr. Yang became a hero among many Chinese, and was later executed. The second was the Kafkaesque case of Feng Zhenghu, a lawyer and activist who spent more than three months in Tokyo’s Narita Airport after Shanghai officials denied him entry. Mr. Ai made a documentary about Mr. Feng’s predicament.

Defending Mr. Ai’s detention, a Chinese official said on April 7 that the investigation of the artist on suspicion of “economic crimes” was in keeping with “the rule of law” in China. The catchall term “economic crimes” is frequently used as a legal cover by police officers who wish to detain or imprison someone whom Communist Party officials consider a political threat.
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Ai Weiwei, the Chinese artist who will soon take over Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, on why he wants to tell people that it's OK to speak out Link to this video from 2010

Ai Weiwei talks about how his art and politics are indistinguishable...Guardian, Thursday 18 March 2010

https://www.artsy.net/artist/ai-weiwei