Roots

Sculptures in the tension between industrial production and nature. Ai Weiwei (born 1957 in Beijing, lives and works in Cambridge and Berlin) is one of the most renowned conceptual artists in the world. Through his installations and sculptures, the artist draws attention to global injustices. This is also true for his new series of works, Roots – expansive iron sculptures cast from the roots of the endangered Pequi tree in Brazil. The artist discovered these giants, over 100 years old, during a journey through the rainforests of Bahia and first assembled them into sculptural compositions for the exhibition Raiz at the OCA Pavilion in São Paulo (2018). After the exhibition, the wooden sculptures were molded and cast in iron. This resulted in a body of work that raises powerful questions about the consequences of industrialization and globalization. In light of the concerning destruction of the rainforest, Ai Weiwei creates a relevant artistic contribution to the discussion on climate change. The book documents the creation of the colossal root sculptures. Texts by Bob Bloomfield, Marcello Dantas, Robert Macfarlane, Peter-Klaus Schuster, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, Günther Vogt, and Christina Yu Yu span a wide range from anthropology and sociology to Chinese and European history, as well as botany and ecology.