Chinese artist’s bold foray: Alcatraz exhibit for free speech and human righrts

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei has found a unique way to make an emphatic statement for free expression and human rights with the opening of “Traces” this week at Alcatraz Island, a collection of portraits of 176 political exiles and prisoners of conscience from around the world. Ai Weiwei designed the exhibit, employed a crew to construct many portraits from Legos in China and made a 2,300-page instruction manual for the San Francisco crew to finish the project. (San Francisco Chronicle, September 18, 2014, by Sam Whiting)

The portraits range from Nelson Mandela and a Tibetan pop singer to Eward Snowden and Memetjan Abdulla, A Chinese and ethnic Uighur editor sentenced to life in prison. But most of the portraits are of those “forgotten by society.” Ei Weiwei was imprisoned in 2011 for 81 days and had his passport lifted. There is some speculation over whether the Chinese government will retaliate against Ai Weiwei for the exhibit, the first time he has addressed free speech and human rights on such a global scale. (The New York Times, September 18, 2014, by Jori Finkel)