Well that didn't last long. Just 46 hours after Ai Weiwei set up four live webcams around his Beijing home to commemorate the first year anniversary of his 81-day arrest, the outspoken artist was told by government authorities to take them down. more ›

On the anniversary of his 81 day detainment, controversial Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has installed four live webcams in his home as a symbolic reference to the 24-hour police surveillance he has been under during the past year. He says the move is a gift to those who are worried for his safety, and also to the Public Security Bureau that is watching him day and night. more ›

A new documentary following the Chinese artist/activist Ai Weiwei was met with rapturous applause at its Sundance Film Festival screening on Sunday. more ›

"Ai Weiwei and I are very good friends. And we have this ongoing, joking discussion about China. It goes more or less like this: he would say, 'Oh man, you are so naïve, you think China is this, and this, and this.' And then I would say, 'But China is really great, blah blah.' I would exaggerate my admiration for China a little bit to oppose him. He is a very, very angry man, very angry in China. They have done things to him, and he cannot forgive. I'm a foreigner, I'm an outsider, I see things more with rose-colored glasses. But he doesn't see a great future for China. So even my argument 'at least you have a great future' doesn't work with him. more ›

"He's an artist and should have the freedom to express his artistic views... This is also the core value of Taiwan." more ›

"The whole procedure, up till today, every step has been illegal and unreasonable," Ai told Reuters in an interview, shortly after he had paid the bond. more ›

By popular demand from the netizens who loaned him money, dissident-artist Ai Weiwei sings an ode to the caonima, or Grass Mud Horse. The phrase is the homonym of a profanity you use to greet the mothers of people you don't like. Today is the deadline for Ai's 15million RMB tax bill. Watch this space. more ›

"Today, the West feels very shy about human rights and the political situation. They’re in need of money. But every penny they borrowed or made from China has really come as a result of how this nation sacrificed everybody’s rights. With globalization and the Internet, we all know it. Don’t pretend you don’t know it. The Western politicians—shame on them if they say they’re not responsible for this. It’s getting worse, and it will keep getting worse.” more ›

Melissa Chan of Al Jazeera brings us video of the flood of money and support flowing into Ai Weiwei's studio in Beijing. His 15 days to cough up a RMB 15 million tax bill are slowing ticking away, but within 8 days, contributions stand at a whopping 6.25 million RMB. more ›

After dissident-artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) was freed from an 81-day detention and slapped with a RMB15 million fine for tax evasion, a princely sum he has been given 15 days to cough up, his mother Ai Ying (高瑛) did what any mother would. She began looking for things to sell. Together with her other son Ai Dan (艾丹), she announced that the former residence of her husband, the poet Ai Qing (艾青), was now up for sale. more ›

Online donations are still pouring in from all corners of China and around the world as supporters of the dissident-artist Ai Weiwei chip in to help him out with the RMB15 million fine for tax evasion that he's been given 15 days to cough up. It's a spontaneous, collective middle finger that they've thrusted at the powers that be for the injustice they see in the 81-day detention that Ai was put through last year as authorities scrambled to prevent the Jasmine Revolution from spreading to China. more ›

On Tuesday, dissident-artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) who was freed not too long ago from an 81-day detention, was slapped with a RMB15 million fine for tax evasion, a princely sum he has been given 15 days to cough up. The very next day, his mother Ai Ying (高瑛) and brother Ai Dan (艾丹) announced that they were mortgaging the former residence of his father, the poet Ai Qing (艾青). Following calls on Twitter by Shanghai human rights lawyer Li Tiantian (李天天) and feminist scholar Ai Xiaoming (艾晓明, no relation) to send money, his supporters also swung into action, setting up Alipay and Paypal accounts to collect donations. more ›

The notice from the tax bureau has come out. Acting as the "actual controller" I'll explain a bit. 15 million. Heh. One year's profits at Chinese Rail. more ›

Zhang Lijia, author of the book Socialism is Great, says that despite her great respect for Ai Weiwei, she disagrees with some of the things he said about Beijing in his recent article for Newsweek. In the article, Ai had described the city as a "constant nightmare" in which he had "no favorite place" left anymore. more ›

"Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: the Bird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence." more ›

Just a few days after Ai Weiwei returned to Twitter, he also gave his first post-release interview with the Global Times. Published in English only, Ai sounds rather uncharacteristically subdued. Read more on the intervew from Evan Osnos and the Peking Duck. As it was a state media interview, unsurprisingly they failed to address his experiences in detainment, but according to sources, he was subjected to "immense psychological pressure" and threatened with 10-year prison sentences. more ›

@aiww: If you don't speak for Wang Lihong, nor for Ran Yunfei, not only you're the sort that doesn't speak up for fairness and justice, you have no love for yourself. more ›

How appropriate that Ai Weiwei should choose to end his social media silence by joining the hottest new thing to be blocked on the Chinese internet: Google Plus. He posted his first message yesterday, saying "来了，问候" ("Greetings, I'm here") and has since been added/friended/fanned/whatever-ed by over 7000 people. more ›

Yo dude. I saw that thing you weib'd the other day. What was that about 'let's shave the characters for "Justice" into our back hair and walk around naked down Nanjing Road'? Yeah, that wasn't a good idea, broseph. They're going to find you now - better move to Berlin! I hear they have great medical care and they're not that into non-Germans, but I think they'll make an exception if you have art/literary festival street cred. They're way chill dude, and everyone cool is moving there! more ›

When you think of major cultural figures of 1980s New York, names like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Run-D.M.C. and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles all come to mind. Though Ai Weiwei might now rank as a towering contemporary art sage, he could hardly be considered to have been in the same league during the cultural moment when New York was a cheaper and more authentically shitty place to live. The new show at the Asia Society Museum in Manhattan, Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993, is Ai's personal record of his twenty-something nascence, fleshing out his pre-famous years of gestation for the now-interested New York audience. more ›

Joshua Rosenzweig, the excellent blogger behind www.siweiluozi.net (on Twitter at @siweiluozi), talks with Al Jazeera about the release of Hu Jia, Ai Weiwei, and the complexity of understanding whether or not international pressure can have an impact on human rights in China: more ›

Just days after Ai Weiwei's release from prison, prominent activist Hu Jia and the four individuals who'd been taken away on account of their relationships to the artist Ai Weiwei have been released. Hu was released after completing a three and half year sentence for state subversion. His wife, Zeng Jinyan confirmed that he arrived home at 2:40am today through her Twitter account. more ›

"because of his good attitude in confessing his crimes as well as a chronic disease he suffers from" said an official statement from Xinhua. more ›

A 6-ft tall sign spelling the words "Bye Bye Ai Weiwei" along a canal in Venice as the city's art biennale takes place has been puzzling passerbys and art critics alike. more ›

Seven women from Gansu province's Hui county (徽县) have claimed they were beaten up and stripped of their clothing by men dressed in black clothing, while trying to report corruption by officials. more ›

The story of Ai Weiwei's arrest has been told all around the world but that four of his friends have also disappeared due to their connections with Ai is just starting to garner attention. more ›

Lu Qing, the wife of Ai Weiwei, was finally allowed to visit him for the first time since he was detained by authorities on April 3rd. Human rights lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, who is a close friend of Ai learned from the artist's family that Lu visited him on Sunday. Liu reports that Ai has not been beaten or tortured and that he mostly asked about his 80-year old mother's health. The location of the meeting was unclear but it was not at a police detention center and took place under the condition that his wife not discuss Ai's case with him. Ai, who has been placed under investigation for economic crimes, still has yet to be issued a formal arrest warrant. more ›