On the Table

On the Table surveys the full span of Ai Weiwei's career, from his early conceptual work in 1980s New York, shaped by Warhol, Duchamp, and Johns, to his present standing as one of the best-known and most influential contemporary Chinese artists.

The book is illustrated throughout with a mix of previously unseen work and key pieces from across thirty-five years of practice, including his Study of Perspective series and his sunflower-seed installations, set alongside documentation of the activism for which he has become widely known. It includes a text by Rosa Pera and an interview with the artist by Lluís Homs, and was published by the Madrid house La Fábrica in 2015.

Ai Weiwei works across sculpture, installation, architecture, film, and social media, and has used each in turn to criticize the Chinese government's record on human rights and free expression. On the Table joins a substantial body of monographs and exhibition catalogues surveying an output that spans conceptual objects to large-scale public installations.