Ai Weiwei @ Three SAM Locations

Seattle Art Museum will present works by globally renowned artist Ai Weiwei across all three of its venues. The exhibition “Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei” brings together over 130 works created between the 1980s and 2020s, from his early conceptual pieces to recent installations.

At the Seattle Asian Art Museum, visitors can experience Ai’s “Water Lilies” (2022)—a 50-foot LEGO interpretation of Claude Monet’s famous triptych at the Museum of Modern Art. The piece holds special significance for SAM: in 1956, the museum displayed an original Monet “Water Lilies” painting in the same building, then its main location.

The Olympic Sculpture Park will feature “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” (2010), twelve bronze sculptures standing over 10 feet tall. These works reimagine zodiac head statues that once adorned an 18th-century imperial fountain in China before being looted during the Second Opium War.

The museum will host a conversation with Ai Weiwei and exhibition curator Foong Ping at Town Hall Seattle on March 9th, 2025. Member tickets for this event go on sale February 3rd, 2025.

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