‘Even sewing a button can be subversive’: Ai Weiwei opens vast new show in Manchester

Ai Weiwei opened a large-scale exhibition titled Button Up! at Factory International’s Aviva Studios in Manchester on 3 July, presenting more than two decades of work alongside new commissions, many not previously shown in the UK. A central installation, Eight-Nation Alliance Flags, consists of eight enormous banners made from about 4 million buttons Ai acquired from a closing Croydon factory in 2019, referencing the 1899 invasion of Qing-dynasty China by an alliance including the UK, US, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, Italy, and Austria-Hungary. On Friday, Ai will stage his first durational performance, the 24-hour Sewing a Button, reenacting aspects of his 81-day detention by Chinese secret police in 2011. The show also includes History of Bombs, a 25-metre-wide toy-brick wall depicting weapons, and refugee-related works including Law of the Journey (2017), a 49-foot inflatable boat, and Surfing (2023), a Lego homage to Hokusai’s The Great Wave.

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