In Ai Weiwei’s Newest Work, Political Dissent and Art History Intertwine

Ai Weiwei, known for his witty and conceptual nose-thumbing at shibboleths both abroad and in his native Communist China, is one of the world’s most enduring art stars. His consistent knack for cheeky, subversive, and frankly ingenious conceptual projects, as well as the political suffering he has endured for his activism, has catapulted him to international renown. 

The show currently on display at Vito Schnabel’s main gallery on West 19th Street — and in the auxiliary space at the Palazzo Chupi on West 11th Street — are dedicated to Mr. Weiwei’s most recent works, iconic art masterpieces, and political imagery recreated from toy Lego and Woma bricks, China’s cheaper answer to Lego.

They are reproductions and pixelated blowups, in other words, often with Mr. Weiwei’s added ironic touches. Always innovative in his use of materials and processes, each brick is a pixel used to create works that have the sheen of digital imagery, but are nonetheless marvels of time consuming, painstaking craft. 

Coming in from the West 19th street location we are treated to Mr. Weiwei’s self-portrait, divided into four panels in the style of Warhol. Mr. Weiwei cut his teeth in the New York of the 1980s, part of a novel group of students allowed abroad from China. Living in the Lower East Side between 1983 and 1993, and participating in the local avant-garde scene, the influence of Warhol was inevitable. 

Past this first wall the show gives away to works that are dauntingly large. We are confronted with disparities of scale, from the tiny pixilation of individual bricks to the enormous surfaces of the images themselves. Mr. Weiwei is always intensely interested in reflecting how different systems and economies of scale — commercial, political, symbolic, personal — interact and fit together. As usual, his use of material is of a piece with his conceptual intentions. 

Feature, say, Mr. Weiwei’s massive reproduction of Monet’s “Water Lilies #1,” in a new iteration — there are at least five others. This new variation, rendered with touches of almost neon orange, also has an added quirk: a dark doorway visible on the far-right side of the painting. It is a reference to the forced political exile of Mr. Weiwei’s father, the beloved Chinese poet Ai Qing, who was sent to labor on a farm in Northeast China. Political dissidence and art history intertwine.