Ai Weiwei: Don Quixote

Curator: Álvaro Rodríguez Fominaya.

The Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC) is pleased to present Don Quixote, a sweeping survey of selected works produced over the last twenty years by the globally renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei (Beijing, 1957). The exhibition features more than forty installations, films, videos and pictures made of toy bricks. This is also the first in-depth showcase of Ai’s series of pieces made using this medium: nineteen works in which the artist uses forty colours to produce images that recreate masterpieces from art history or alter photographs culled from the media.

The exhibition title harks back to the artist’s childhood in the remote deserts of Xinjiang, China, recalling how a vividly illustrated edition of Don Quixote that belonged to his father, the poet Ai Qing, sparked his imagination. At the same time, the novel introduced him to a thought system other than the dialectical materialism in which he grew up, showing him that it was possible to construct an entire world of fantasy, even in stark contradiction to reality.

The show reflects Ai Weiwei’s major humanist concerns, from the refugee crisis and the defence of freedom of speech to what the artist himself calls the decline of humanitarianism, which comes through in much of his oeuvre.

Ai Weiwei freely uses readymades and objets trouvés, concepts that originated with Marcel Duchamp, which we find in works like Lotus (2016) and Olive Tree Roots (2021). He often works with traditional Chinese craftmanship—as in the two monumental pieces made of bamboo, Yuyi (2015) and Life Cycle (2008)—that transport us to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644). Along the exhibition itinerary, we also see how Ai translates linguistic tropes from the Chinese language into visual terms. One example is A Spring with Caomina (2019), which alludes to the image of an alpaca that has become a symbol of resistance against internet censorship.

Ai Weiwei. Don Quixote has been designed in collaboration with the artist exclusively for MUSAC, the only venue where it will be displayed. Its galleries, due to their size, can accommodate some of Ai Weiwei’s most monumental works. Such is the case of La Commedia Umana (The Human Comedy, 2017–21), which is being shown for the first time in a museum. Over eight metres tall, six metres wide, and weighing 2,700 kg, it is one of the largest Murano chandeliers ever made, consisting of around 2,000 pieces. La Commedia Umana reimagines the classic Venetian glass chandeliers and stems from the artist’s reflections on humanism and humanity, as well as his advocacy for freedom of expression. Refugee crises, the threat of current and future pandemics, and devastating global environmental changes fuel Ai Weiwei’s reflections on the human-nature interrelation and the uncertain future of humanity, ultimately redefining the balance between life and death.