Ai Weiwei, Bench (2004), via Faurschou Foundation Copenhagen

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is currently presenting an exhibition of collected works that span the artist’s long career, encountering and documenting the artist’s countless conflicts, arrests and vocal critiques of the Chinese regime.  As a social activist, the artist’s work reflects the history and challenges of China in the 21st Century, placed alongside his own reflection and perception of his home country.  His work is intended to act as a form of intervention, and to encourage social change within the contemporary art sphere, while reflecting on China as the product of its vastly deep historical reserves.  This practice, and its history against the backdrop of contemporary China is illustrated in detail at Farschou Foundation this year, as the institution presents Ai Weiwei: Ruptures. (more…)

Artist Olafur Eliasson has unveiled a new project in Copenhagen, Denmark, an immense installation featuring 112 tons of ice.  Ice Watch, created in conjunction with geologist Minik Rosing, to commemorate the Fifth Assessment Report on the Climate, a drastic report on the rapidly changing state of the global atmosphere. “I hope that people will touch the inland ice on City Hall Square and be touched by it,” said Eliasson. (more…)