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ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Born in 1957, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has become one of the most notorious artists of our era due to his political activism and his advocacy of human rights even in the face of open opposition on the part of the Chinese government. His political activism mirrors that of his father, the poet Ai Qing, who was sent into exile by Mao Zedong when Weiwei was a toddler. Ai studied in the United States, where he lived, primarily in New York, from 1981-1994. His work, which has been executed in many media from photography to large-scale sculptural installation often attests in metaphorical fashion to his critical stance on political and social issues.