Ai Weiwei to represent Germany at Venice Biennale

Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei and Indian photographer Dayanita Singh will represent Germany at next year's Venice Biennale international art exhibition, German organisers said Wednesday. They will join German film director, writer and producer Romuald Karmakar and South African photographer Santu Mofokeng, the curator of the German pavilion said in a statement released by the Museum of Modern Art in Frankfurt. Susanne Gaensheimer, who is also the museum's director, said all four artists were associated with the German art scene and had worked in Germany for many years. "Contemporary artistic production in Germany, as elsewhere, is characterised by multilayered forms of cooperation between artists from all over the world and by international intellectual and cultural exchange," the statement said. "Therefore, at the Venice Biennale, Germany will not be represented as a hermetic national unit but as an active participant in a complex, worldwide constellation," it added. In July 2011, Ai Weiwei said he had accepted a job at an art university in Germany in the midst of battling charges in China of massive tax evasion while in police custody. Shortly before his detention, he had announced plans to set up a studio in Berlin to showcase his work. And he also underwent surgery in Germany after he said he was beaten by police in the southwestern Chinese province of Sichuan to prevent him from testifying on behalf of a fellow activist Tan Zuoren. The 55th Venice Biennale will run from June 1 to November 24, 2013.