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# Ai Weiwei's Shanghai Studio Now Demolished
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/ai-shanghai-studio/
- Published: 2011-01-12T16:53:03.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-24T15:49:02.000Z
- Description: In Fall of 2010, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was requested by government officials to vacate his newly built Shanghai studio so that it could be demolished. The weird thing is that the Shanghai city government were the ones to ask Ai to build the studio. Following a blow-out demolition party on Novembe
- Author: Kyle Chayka
- Tags: News, #image-position-hidden, Ai Weiwei, China, Politics, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-17 09:23 (2009-2011)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/hyperallergic-newspack-s3-amazonaws-com/uploads/2011/01/studio-demolition-1139am.jpg)

A photo from the demolition of Ai Weiwei's Shanghai studio (photo from shanghaiist.com) 

In Fall of 2010, Chinese artist **Ai Weiwei** was [requested by city officials to vacate](http://hyperallergic.tumblr.com/post/1465260345/chinese-authorities-have-ordered-demolition-of-ai?ref=hyperallergic.com) his newly built Shanghai studio so that it could be demolished. The weird thing is that the Shanghai government were the ones to ask Ai to build the studio. Following a blow-out demolition party on November 7 that Ai couldn’t attend (he was under [house arrest](https://hyperallergic.com/ai-weiwei-under-house-arrest-for-studio-party/)), the studio has been emptied and demolished.

- Pictures are all that remain of the Ai’s Shanghai studio complex, but the photos of the demolition itself are particularly powerful. China’s **Global Times** reports that the [demolition began](http://china.globaltimes.cn/society/2011-01/611552.html?ref=hyperallergic.com) on Tuesday morning and was complete by Wednesday night. “The demolition notice was issued on October 19,” Global Times writes, “and it said the studio failed to follow proper application procedures.”
- Flickr user **Duyanpili** has a [photostream](http://www.flickr.com/photos/46231077@N06/with/5345321980/?ref=hyperallergic.com) documenting the destruction of the studio, including pictures of the demolition crew.
- **Shanghaiist** has another set of [photos of the demolition](http://shanghaiist.com/2011/01/11/gallery%5Fai%5Fweiweis%5Fshanghai%5Fstudio.php?gallery0Pic=6&ref=hyperallergic.com#gallery), and notes that Ai suspects that the destruction of the studio was a direct result of his political activities.
- The **New York Times** has an [extensive report](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/world/asia/13china.html?src=twrhp&ref=hyperallergic.com) on the studio’s destruction in which Ai adds that a neighboring studio the artist had designed for a friend was also demolished. Demolition of the studio also began without Ai’s knowing; government officials had earlier agreed not to destroy the structure before the Chinese New Year in February.
- The **Art Newspaper** notes that controversy shows [no signs up letting up](http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Ai+Weiwei+looks+to+Taiwan/22155?ref=hyperallergic.com) for Ai Weiwei, with the artist planning an exhibition in October of 2011 at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum in Taiwan.