The famous Chinese artist and human rights activist Ai Weiwei is one of the most influential artists of our time. In Search of Humanity presents important works from all creative stages in his career, offering an insight into his extraordinary artistry. The exhibition is an impressive retrospective of his career, which by now has spanned four decades, and includes paintings, cultural ready-mades, LEGO works, sculptures, installations, photography, and video art. The artworks show his unrelenting search for humanity and his efforts to make our world a better place.

This must-see exhibition presents 120 works from Ai Weiwei’s versatile oeuvre. His work reflects on themes like his early childhood, spent in exile with his father since the Anti-Rightist Movement, or his own detainment in 2011. Ai Weiwei makes topical political subjects conspicuously visible in order to make sure that we will not forget them, even though we have become accustomed to their coverage in the media. He, for instance, manages to redirect our attention to the refugee crisis with a work made from life jackets that were left on the beach by refugees.

Through his work, Ai Weiwei criticizes the destruction of ancient cultures, the intimidation methods used by the Chinese government, and societies in which the individual has no freedom. He deconstructs existing object, rebuilds them, and subsequently gives them a new, multilayered significance. A sculpture made from traditionally crafted wooden stools; an installation consisting of bicycles that have been joined together, but stripped of their original function; a snake ceiling constructed with a thousand backpacks; or a floor with 1 ton of hand-painted, porcelain sunflower seeds: In Search of Humanity is an ode to humanity and the freedom of the individual.