At The Wall Street Journal’s Scene Asia, Alexandra A. Seno profiles Ai Weiwei’s estranged half-brother, oil and ink painter Ai Xuan:
His works often spark bidding wars at auctions, and 4 million yuan is considered a fair price. A collector at a 2011 Poly Auction sale in Beijing famously paid 28 million yuan (about $5 million) for one of Mr. Ai’s oil-on-canvas pieces, among the highest prices ever achieved by the work of a living artist in China, according to Artron, a Chinese art-data provider.
[…] Yet Mr. Ai’s works rarely translate outside of China today. Beryl Chan, an independent art adviser based in Hong Kong, describes them as “very traditional, academic and… repetitive” in terms of subject matter.
[…] Despite his family background, “I am not interested in politics at all, only humanity,” Mr. Ai said. “I want to be remembered as an artist from China who expressed the inner feelings of the simple people of this time.” [Source]
