Though it was apt to kick-off a year with the promise of writing more about art, and hopefully more about art outside of this country (haha!), with the first Ai Weiwei exhibit in China, something that I happened upon when I was there in September, and rebelling against the very fixed and strict schedule set for the media group I was with. So I got in a cab and asked in my Chinese-English (which is really just English with a hopefully successful Chinese accent, haha), to be brought to 798 Art District, 30 minutes away without traffic, a wonderful wonderful space for art and creativity, and art selling, inevitably.
Especially since I happened upon the self-titled first exhibit of Ai Weiwei, who at that time was in the news (all over BBC in fact) because he was in London, having gotten his passport back recently from the Chinese authorities. This was also in the context of the anti-China narratives that dominated global news (CNN and BBC) about how the stock market had dipped in the country, even as I would later find out that this might have been because they had raised minimum wage.
The Ai Weiwei exhibit review is up at The Times. Meanwhile, photos!