Ai Weiwei Photography travel tips and stories. Vacations ideas, cruises, spa and resorts

The exhibit “Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993″ opened yesterday at the Asia Society Museum. It features 227 photographs taken by Ai Weiwei capturing the history, culture, and atmosphere of New York City from his unique perspective. The Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei is widely known for using his blog to speak out against the injustices of the Chinese government. “He is one of the most provocative and influential conceptual artists from China today, and in recent years he has become an increasingly iconic figure”, says Asia Society Museum Director Melissa Chiu.

The photographs are selected from a collection of over 10,000 negatives capture the daily life of many Chinese artists who escaped to America during the 1980s. Before Ai Weiwei became internationally recognized as an artist and activist, he lived in a tiny apartment in New York’s East Village. Throughout those years, the artist used his camera to document his life and work, his surroundings, and the atmosphere of the time. The exhibit is a chronological documentation of the young artist’s life in Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, more than a decade before he was commissioned to design the Beijing National Stadium for the 2008 Summer Olympics. Ai Weiwei: New York Photographs 1983-1993 will be on view at the Asia Society until 14 August 2011.