Ai Weiwei: On Censorship

Ai Weiwei—artist, activist, and one of the world’s most influential cultural figures—has experienced its power firsthand. In his book, he calls for freedom of expression in an age shaped by big data, mass surveillance, and new technologies of control.

Ai Weiwei shows how censorship persists both in the overt propaganda and censorship of authoritarian regimes and subtly within democratic structures. He also demonstrates how international corporations, cultural institutions, social media, and so-called ideologies of “freedom” have created fertile ground for new, more insidious forms of oppression. One thing becomes clear: censorship exists not only in China but also in so-called liberal democracies such as Germany.

Ai Weiwei, born in Beijing in 1957, is one of the most significant contemporary artists. Due to his commitment to human rights, he was briefly detained in China in 2011 before fleeing to Germany in 2015, where he accepted a visiting professorship at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2019, he left Germany for London; today he lives in Portugal. His latest book is titled “1,000 Years of Joy and Sorrow.”