"Ai Weiwei: On the Table" surveys the full scope of Weiwei's career, from his early days in 1980s New York to his present-day status as the best-known and most influential Chinese artist in the world. Work by this media-savvy activist calling for greater freedom in China can now be found in leading contemporary art museums and collections worldwide; the image of his taunting, irreverent middle finger imposed atop touristy monuments and landscape photos has become ubiquitous, his sunflower seed installations iconic. This volume includes previously unseen new work, as well as a range of key pieces from the past 35 years, presented in a beautiful clothbound format. Ai Weiwei (born 1957) spent his youth in exile, returning to Beijing at the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. He lived in the US, mostly in New York, from 1981 to 1993, and in the wake of his exposure to the work of Warhol, Duchamp and Johns, began altering readymade objects and creating conceptually driven art. In 2008 he was commissioned as the artistic design consultant for the Beijing National Stadium built for the Summer Olympics. The artist has openly criticized the Chinese government and was famously incarcerated for 81 days in 2011 on no official charges.

Manifestos and immodest proposals from China's most famous artist and activist, culled from his popular blog, shut down by Chinese authorities in 2009. In 2006, even though he could barely type, China's most famous artist started blogging. For more than three years, Ai Weiwei turned out a steady stream of scathing social commentary, criticism of government policy, thoughts on art and architecture, and autobiographical writings. He wrote about the Sichuan earthquake (and posted a list of the schoolchildren who died because of the government's "tofu-dregs engineering"), reminisced about Andy Warhol and the East Village art scene, described the irony of being investigated for "fraud" by the Ministry of Public Security, made a modest proposal for tax collection. Then, on June 1, 2009, Chinese authorities shut down the blog. This book offers a collection of Ai's notorious online writings translated into English-the most complete, public documentation of the original Chinese blog available in any language. The New York Times called Ai "a figure of Warholian celebrity." He is a leading figure on the international art scene, a regular in museums and biennials, but in China he is a manifold and controversial presence: artist, architect, curator, social critic, justice-seeker. He was a consultant on the design of the famous "Bird's Nest" stadium but called for an Olympic boycott; he received a Chinese Contemporary Art "lifetime achievement award" in 2008 but was beaten by the police in connection with his "citizen investigation" of earthquake casualties in 2009. Ai Weiwei's Blog documents Ai's passion, his genius, his hubris, his righteous anger, and his vision for China.