Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has taken over Manchester's Aviva Studios with his largest site-specific exhibition to date, Button Up!, which runs until September 6. The exhibition is a major cultural coup for Manchester, showcasing world-class art that delivers an urgent warning about the consequences of historical amnesia.
Monumental Works Confront History and Crisis
The exhibition features massive-scale art, including a 47-meter-long inflatable refugee boat titled 'Law of the Journey' (2017) and a 25-meter-wide mural made from three million toy bricks. A new commission, 'Eight-Nation Alliance Flags', is embroidered with millions of buttons from a bankrupt Croydon factory. The works collectively address the legacies of imperialism, Chinese and British relations, and globalization.
Ai Weiwei stated, “I’m not interested in making very big things for the sake of it, but in Manchester, that wonderful warehouse space calls for monumental work. Visiting this city for this exhibition - the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution - and reflecting on Britain’s global territorial expansion made me realise I had to explore history and understand how it connects to the forces driving today’s wars and global crises.”
Interactive and Immersive Elements
This weekend, the artist will perform a 24-hour live performance recreating his secret 81-day prison detention. The exhibition also includes a 400-year-old Wang Family Ancestral Hall from the Ming dynasty, rebuilt by Ai Weiwei using traditional wooden joints without nails, and a teahouse made from compressed Pu-erh tea leaves, a dark tea from southwest China whose value increases as it matures.
Other notable works include 'La Commedia Umana' (The Human Comedy), a chandelier made of over 2,000 handmade Murano glass pieces resembling bones, organs, and surveillance cameras, and a wall of bombs constructed from 3.5 million toy bricks. Twelve large bronze statues of animal heads representing the Chinese Zodiac, reclaimed and recast, speak to art looting and repatriation issues.
Cultural Significance for Manchester
Button Up! follows previous major exhibitions at Aviva Studios, including Yayoi Kusama's giant inflatable sculptures and Marina Abramović's immersive performance. The venue's ability to attract global talent underscores Manchester's growing cultural prominence. Ai Weiwei's exhibition runs from July 2 to September 6.
