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> Fetch the complete content index at: https://hyperallergic.com/llms.txt
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# Ai Weiwei Wrote the Book on Censorship
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/ai-weiwei-wrote-the-book-on-censorship/
- Published: 2026-04-20T20:00:58.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T20:00:58.000Z
- Description: Plus, inside a Black Panther family album, predatory art-world relationships, and the unknown Qing Dynasty trade portraitists.
- Author: Lisa Yin Zhang
- Tags: Books Newsletter, Newsletter

“How long can you silence the very thing that makes you human?” asks our Editor-in-Chief Hakim Bishara in his review of Ai Weiwei’s new book *On Censorship.* The dissident Chinese artist’s “small but mighty” book draws on a lifetime of fighting state control and packs in ever timely reflections on the harms of censorship — not just in authoritarian regimes, but also in the so-called enlightened West. 

Also in this edition: a sojourn inside a Black Panther family album, a peek into the lives of the now-anonymous painters in the Qing dynasty Canton trade system, and a semi-autobiographical novel about a predatory art teacher. 

*—Lisa Yin Zhang, associate editor*

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[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/04/joju-maceo-cleaver-3-1.jpeg)](https://hyperallergic.com/inside-a-black-panther-family-album/)

“Joju & Maceo \[Cleaver\], Hydra 1970” (© Kathleen Neal Cleaver Archive; album photo John Stephens, image courtesy Kathleen Neal Cleaver Archive)

### [Inside a Black Panther Family Album](https://hyperallergic.com/inside-a-black-panther-family-album/)

Kathleen and Eldridge Cleaver’s family album depicts aspirational homemaking in diaspora, capturing the tension between rest and motion as they navigated exile with their children. | Leigh Raiford

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## From Our Critics

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/04/aiweiei.jpg)](https://hyperallergic.com/ai-weiwei-and-the-art-of-keeping-your-mouth-shut/)

### [Ai Weiwei and the Art of Keeping Your Mouth Shut](https://hyperallergic.com/ai-weiwei-and-the-art-of-keeping-your-mouth-shut/)

*On Censorship* offers timely reflections from the dissident artist, whose entire life and career have been marked by state persecution. | Hakim Bishara

*On Censorship* (2026) by Ai Weiwei

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[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/04/winniwwong.jpg)](https://hyperallergic.com/the-unnameable-artists-of-the-canton-trade-system/)

### [The Unnameable Artists of the Canton Trade System](https://hyperallergic.com/the-unnameable-artists-of-the-canton-trade-system/)

In a book on Qing-era trade portraitists whose names are lost to history, Winnie Wong shows us how our restless pursuits of authenticity guide us into pitfalls of our own making. | Nanase Shirokawa

*The Many Names of Anonymity: Portraitists of the Canton Trade* (2026) by Winnie Wong

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[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/04/larissapham.jpg)](https://hyperallergic.com/in-discipline-larissa-pham-explores-predatory-art-world-mentorship/)

### [In *Discipline*, Larissa Pham Explores Predatory Art-World Mentorship](https://hyperallergic.com/in-discipline-larissa-pham-explores-predatory-art-world-mentorship/)

The art critic and former painter reinvents the genre’s well-trod territory in her debut novel, which makes heartbreakingly acute the consequences of teacher-student relationships. | Claudia Ross

*Discipline: A Novel* (2026) by Larissa Pham

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## From the Archive

[![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/04/1_david-and-stephen-hunter.jpg)](https://hyperallergic.com/documenting-the-black-history-not-taught-in-classrooms-renata-cherlise/)

David and Stephen Hunter pose near a television set, c. 1960–1970 (courtesy Ten Speed Press/Penguin Random House)

### [Documenting the Black History Not Taught in Classrooms](https://hyperallergic.com/documenting-the-black-history-not-taught-in-classrooms-renata-cherlise/)

The photographs in Renata Cherlise’s Black Archives capture Black people experiencing moments of love, joy, rest, leisure, and everyday life. | Briana Ellis-Gibbs