Ai Weiwei talks on his mobile phone at his studio in Beijing. Photo by Adam Dean/Panos

Ai Weiwei is back in production with his Fake studio and his team of assistants. What does art mean now to the dissident?

When I sit down with Ai Weiwei, the first thing he does is aim his iPhone at me. We are in Ai’s cathedral-like home-cum-studio, in the dusty village of Caochangdi, on Beijing’s outskirts. Winter sunlight streams through vast windows into an expansive room, sparsely decorated with a large potted ginkgo tree and a headless Buddha. While the dimensions of his living space soar, Ai is trapped in a goldfish bowl. China’s most famous dissident and artist is tagged by authorities wherever he goes – his phones are tapped, his home bugged. Outside his now iconic green gate, a surveillance camera bears down menacingly.

Somewhere, deep within the bowels of the Chinese Communist Party, Ai’s life concurrently exists on film. But, with characteristic mischief, the artist has turned the table on his tormentors and provided them with what they want for free. While they record Ai, he records himself, relaying his movements (and those of people around him) to the world in a constant stream, via Twitter and Instagram. On this freezing January morning, as I wait for our interview to begin, he presses a button. Without asking, he takes my photograph and I become part of the media montage that is inextricable from the artist Ai Weiwei.

Ever since he was arrested and kept in secret detention for 81 days, in April 2011, Ai has been living in limbo. His company has been charged with tax evasion (economic crimes are routinely levelled against dissidents) and he's been investigated for pornography and bigamy, the latter a result of fathering a son from an extramarital relationship. Today, Ai can, within limits, move around China. But the regime has retained his passport, preventing foreign travel and making his exhibitions abroad – the only place he can exhibit – a logistical nightmare.....Continue Reading

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