Ai Weiwei: Arch, 2017; Galvanized mild steel and mirror polished stainless steel

Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio/ Frahm & Frahm
Photo: Jason Wyche, courtesy of Public Art Fund, NY

With the Fuhrman Family Foundation’s partnership, Public Art Fund mounted Ai Weiwei: Good Fences Make Good Neighbors–one of the most ambitious projects in Public Art Fund’s 40+ year history.

Inspired by the international migration crisis and current global geopolitical landscape, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors transformed the security fence into a powerful social and artistic symbol with interventions across the city. With both local and global resonances, the exhibition utilized diverse sites throughout New York–in locations both iconic and community-oriented–that connected Ai Weiwei’s personal story as an artist, activist, and immigrant, to the broader history of immigration in the city. These locations also highlighted the city as a site for artistic intervention, and the charged socio-political moment reverberating around the world. It was the artist’s largest public art exhibition to date.