Cat with Heong Gallery model, 2015. Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio.

CAMBRIDGE.- Ai Weiwei’s much-loved trees have been installed at The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge. Ai Weiwei: Cubes and Trees (17 June–9 October 2016), focusses on two popular series of works – cubes and trees – which are being shown alongside objects and videos not previously seen in the UK. The exhibition includes a film made this year on the island of Lesbos, where Ai has been working with refugees as they arrive in Europe. 

The exhibition extends beyond the building of The Heong Gallery to invite visitors further into the College grounds. 

Ai Weiwei, Treasure Box, 2014. Courtesy Ai Weiwei studio

Ai’s much-loved series of trees form an uplifting habitable circle in the main quadrangle alongside existing trees and the College Chapel. Inside the Gallery, his series of one-metre-cube sculptures quietly resonate with the scale and shape of the building, which is punctuated by square windows looking onto the surrounding gardens Rachel Rose Smith, Curator of The Heong Gallery, said: ‘Both groups of works attest to the power of Ai’s use of forms, materials and places to reveal more about how we interact with our environments. The video Ai made in Lesbos provides us with a view of a current situation which also proves hard to forget.’ 

Discussions with Ai Weiwei began in 2012, through curator John Tancock, a former student of Downing College. Because his passport had been seized by the Chinese authorities in 2011, the artist was unable to leave China to visit the site and worked instead from a specially-constructed architect’s model of the Gallery. 

Ai Weiwei, Trees.

ohn Tancock, who has collaborated with Ai Weiwei on several projects at his Beijing studio in recent years and guest-curated the exhibition, said: ‘It is exciting to be able to welcome Ai Weiwei to Cambridge, an environment perfectly attuned to his own questioning attitude towards all accepted ideas.’ 

The Heong Gallery, designed by Caruso St John Architects in London, opened to critical and popular acclaim this February with its first exhibition Generation Painting 1955–65: British Art from the Collection of Sir Alan Bowness. This second exhibition will continue to put the Gallery on the map as an exciting new venue for exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. 

AI WEIWEI: Cubes and Trees has been curated by John Tancock in collaboration with Ai Weiwei. It is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue featuring new essays and photography.

Ai Weiwei walks among his tree sculptures at Downing College at Cambridge University, England. They are made from real dead trees, and some have as many as a hundred parts. Credit Ioana Marinescu

The artist stands in front of a screen inside The Heong Gallery showing “Film On The Boat, 2016,” a less than 10-minute short shot on the island of Lesbos, Greece. Credit Ioana Marinescu