Oh Weiwei finds peace in Portugal: 'I could throw away all my art and not be sorry'.
As he adjusts to life in the Alentejo, the artist prepares for an epic design exhibition at the Design Museum in London, which will feature 200,000 broken teapot spouts and jugs. He talks about Chinese power, Western envy – and their desire to spend
It's a warm, clear spring morning and Ai Weiwei takes us on a tour of the massive new studio he's building about an hour's drive from Lisbon. There is no other house in sight, just the flat green landscape of the Alentejo, and a great blue sky dotted with darting swallows. The studio, explains the artist, is a replica of his old one in Shanghai, which was completed in 2011 only to be almost immediately demolished by the Chinese authorities: officially, because it was in breach of planning regulations; unofficially, because of Ai's outspoken criticism of the government. Months later, the artist was arrested for three months and then placed under house arrest. When her passport was returned in 2015, Ai left the country and never returned.
“We live in an ever-changing landscape,” says Ai. His has certainly changed more than most people's. After China, he settled in Berlin, but left under a cloud, saying: "Nazism exists perfectly in everyday German life today". He moved to the United Kingdom, where he had disagreements with the immigration authorities. On his first visit, he was initially only granted a 20-day visa on account of his “criminal conviction” in China.