Dissidence for dummies

Pierre d’Alancaisez | The Critic | 12th August 2026

At Ai Weiwei’s first big show in London 15 years ago, he was hailed as an intellectually stimulating conceptual artist. A current show shows how much that reputation has shrunk. The works on display are often huge – a 49m inflatable boat, a three-tonne black glass chandelier, enormous flags – and address a profusion of issues. Some carry emotional impact while others are “self-aggrandising” or just “glib”. “Ai …  pretends to illuminate a problem whilst, in fact, obscuring it”.