Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei is on display at the Seattle Art Museum until September 7, 2025. As an artist, Ai Weiwei uses humor and provocation across artistic mediums, prompting viewers to think deeply about history, society, and culture. To enhance your experience of the exhibit, librarians at the Seattle Public Library put together a list of books and films exploring these themes in Ai Weiwei’s work and in the work of other artists: Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei at Seattle Art Museum. Check out the exhibit before Sept. 7, perhaps by using one of the Library’s museum passes, or on a free First Thursday evening (SAM discounts)!
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei
In this intimate and thought-provoking memoir, prolific artist Ai Weiwei interweaves his life with that of his poet father’s and reflects on the intersection of art and revolution in China’s past century.
Acts of Resistance: The Power of Art to Create a Better World by Amber Massie-Blomfield
Massie-Blomfield examines the work of a variety of artists, writers, musicians, directors, collectives and more that have approached the making and presentation of art as a form of explicit protest and resistance.
Ai Weiwei: Yours Truly
This streaming documentary goes behind the scenes of Ai Weiwei’s 2014 exhibit on Alcatraz, which followed his detention and house arrest in Beijing by Chinese authorities, displaying portraits made from Lego of dissidents and prisoners of conscience around the world.
It Was Vulgar & It Was Beautiful: How AIDS Activists Used Art to Fight a Pandemic by Jack Lowery
Lowery charts the now-iconic work and art of Gran Fury, the artist collective that grew out of and worked with grassroots activist group ACT UP in their 1980s and 1990s protests against governmental and societal complacency and negligence around the AIDS epidemic.
Make a Zine! Start Your Own Underground Publishing Revolution by Joe Biel
Part history lesson, part how-to, Biel looks at the counter-culture and protest roots of zines, as well as a full primer on how to get started making your own.
View the full booklist: Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei at Seattle Art Museum.
Caption for top image: Installation view of “Ai Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei” at Seattle Art Museum, July 2025. Photo by Chloe Collyer
~ posted by Andrea G.