Ai Weiwei commission for Art X Freedom opening 10 September, Four Freedoms Park, New York, USA

25 April 2025

From 10 September – 1 December 2025, concurrent with the 80th Session of the UN General Assembly and the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, the inaugural Art X Freedom commission will be a monumental new public art installation, Camouflage, by artist and activist Ai Weiwei in Four Freedoms Park. Created in direct dialogue with the park's design and location, Weiwei’s work comprises a monumental open sanctuary and structure draped in a camouflage netting, inviting the public to consider questions of vulnerability and protection, truth and concealment, and the reverberating impacts of violent human conflicts around the world. The artist invites the public to integrate their own statements on freedom into the fabric of the work, adding a participatory and collective element to the evolving public installation.

Ai Weiwei moves between modes of production and investigation, subject to the direction and outcome of his research, whether into the Chinese earthquake of 2008 (for works such as Straight, 2008-12 and Remembering, 2009) or the worldwide plight of refugees and forced migrants (for Law of the Journey and his feature-length documentary, Human Flow, both 2017). From early iconoclastic positions in regards to authority and history, which included Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn and a series of middle-finger salutes to sites of power, Study of Perspective (both 1995), Ai’s production expanded to encompass architecture, public art and performance. Beyond concerns of form or protest, Ai now measures our existence in relation to economic, political, natural and social forces, uniting craftsmanship with conceptual creativity.

Find out more via Four Freedoms Park Conservancy.

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