The Observer - Featured Article - May 25, 2018
More is always better. That seems to be the working philosophy of Ai Weiwei, the Chinese superstar artist, who will be taking over Los Angeles this fall with not one, but three exhibitions simultaneously on view throughout the city. The opening of Ai’s show at the Marciano Art Foundation on September 28 will be followed just a day later by his opening at Jeffrey Deitch’s new space in Hollywood, that gallery’s inaugural show. A week later, UTA Artist Space (run by United Talent Agency) will open a third exhibition of Ai’s work in their new Beverly Hills iteration. Though these anticipated presentations of his work have garnered some media notice, it’s been mostly about the unusual occurrence of an artist exhibiting this much in one city at one time. The attention paid to the art itself though, feels oddly lackluster.