Ai Weiwei launches latest sculpture featuring 70 metre long boat with 258 refugees

“Himself a refugee, Ai has almost entirely focused his work on advocating the refugees’ human rights and documenting their tragic condition throughout the past two years. He has visited dozens of places struggling with a humanitarian crisis. The exhibition Law of the Journey is a multi-layered, epic statement on the human condition: an artist’s expression of empathy and moral concern in the face of continuous, uncontrolled destruction and carnage,” says the National Gallery’s Director-General, Jiří Fajt.

The installation depicts an inflatable rubber boat carrying above life-size figures of refugees. His largest-scale exhibit to date, Weiwei’s latest piece arrives from being previously exhibited in Athens, Berlin, Vienna, Florence and New York. The Prague exhibition is thus the climax of Ai’s “journey with the refugees” and, simultaneously, his hitherto most extensive project.

Also on display are Weiwei’s earlier works – Snake Ceiling, Laundromat and Traveling Light, and the installation With Flowers. The exhibition takes place between 17 March and 7 January 2018. For more information, visit ngprague.cz.