Ai Weiwei Will Make the Refugee Crisis Personal in Qatar Show
Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is taking his international campaign to express solidarity with the world’s refugees to the Gulf, opening his first exhibition in the region this month in Qatar. It will include a large-scale installation Laundromat (2016), featuring a collection of thousands of items of clothing worn by refugees, many from Syria attempting to reach asylum in northern Europe.
The show will be at the Garage Gallery in the Fire Station in Doha, Qatar, opening March 15 and running through June 1. The exhibition follows on the heels of Ai’s expansive exhibition at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, which closed on March 3.
It is a particularly charged time for a show in Doha by China’s most famous activist-artist, who is now based in Berlin. The Saudi-led blockade of Qatar is ongoing. (Qatar denies its neighbor’s claims that it has helped finance terrorists.)