With the support of Akbank, Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum, Turkey, is hosting Ai Weiwei’s first exhibition in Turkey. The exhibition, which was planned to run between the dates 12 September 2017 and 28 January 2018, has been extended until 11 March 2018.
Inspired by Turkey’s historic connections to China through the ‘Silk Road’, the exhibition showcases an extensive selection from the artist’s oeuvre alongside new works. Focusing on Ai Weiwei’s wide-ranging production in the medium of porcelain, the exhibition presents a narrative informed by the artist’s life story and his approach to both the tradition of craftsmanship and art history.
The exhibition offers a comprehensive view of Ai Weiwei’s art practice through a structure built through recurrent themes in his works. Dealing with the concepts of authenticity, the transformation of the value systems throughout different eras and cultural history, Ai Weiwei’s works call the viewers’ understanding of cultural, artistic and historical values into question.
Through his interrogation of the concept of authenticity in the replicas he produces, Ai Weiwei’s works undermine the difference between the copy and the original. Accordingly, he adapts the logic of the Chinese and Greek pottery decoration and Egyptian wall painting to reflect on history and provide us with a comprehensive view of the contemporary world. With its wide-range and extensive selection of works in the medium of porcelain—the earliest work dates back four decades and the exhibition contains over 100 art works—this exhibition at the Sabancı University Sakıp Sabancı Museum stands out as one of the most unique explorations into this singular artist’s practice.