The artist and activist Ai Weiwei.

By Carl Court/Getty Images.

He is the most famous Chinese artist living today, a political and artistic multi multi-hyphenate: political detainee, activist, philosopher, provocateur, a sculptor, architect, filmmaker, installation artist, and the only person Ive ever met who has an asteroid named after him: 83598 Aiweiwei. I wasnt sure what to expect as we sat down to talk earlier this month at New Yorks Gramercy Park Hotel; the artist, who works in Beijing and Berlin, was fresh off a plane. I was anticipating someone fierce but instead found Ai to be deeply charming, curious, a playful bear of a man who is more interested in asking questions than answering them.

Our spirited conversation was illustrative of the shift in the artists work in recent years, away from events in China and the governments response to his workoften a commentary within a commentary, such as putting surveillance cameras on his home/studio and broadcasting live 24 hours a day while already under state surveillance. Of late he has worked to broaden his international scope, creating work in response to the global disaster of the refugee crisis and encouraging us to live in the embrace of each others differences, an important note from a man who had grown up in a culture that allowed for no difference, no individualization.

At this point in Ais career, there is no separation between his artwork and his political activism. His recent work includes Soleil Levant, composed of 3,500 life jackets discarded by refugees who had landed on Lesbos that barricaded the windows of the Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen. Human Flow, a film about the global refugee crisis shot in 23 countries that documents his desire to understand it, will be released this fall. His Hansel & Gretel, a collaboration with architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron, is an immersive exploration of modern surveillance complete with selfies, and is on view at New Yorks Park Avenue Armory through August 6.

And in October, as part of its 40th anniversary, the Public Art Fund will present Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, titled after the poem Mending Wall by Robert Frost. Good Fences will consist of interruptions in the urban landscape in various locations across New Yorks five boroughs. Among the works under discussion, though not yet confirmed, are a large-scale sculpture in Central Parks Doris C. Freedman Plaza, which would present as a kind of beautiful golden/gilded bird cage made of steel, a visual puzzle akin to a maximum-security visitation from another planet and would have a central portion where visitors can enter, surrounded by an inaccessible passageway containing turnstiles. Another possible location is the Washington Square Park which could host a polished mirror passageway featuring two united human silhouettes, reminiscent of an entrance that artist Marcel Duchamp (who was known to play chess in the park) designed for Andr Bretons Gradiva gallery in 1937.

Throughout the city, using elements of the everyday, Ai will create variations on fencing that draw on both literal and metaphorical expressions of division, questioning notions of security, exclusion, privacy, and possession. The scale of Ais work and the scope of his imagination allow for a beautiful, often elegiac, synthesis of his intellect and the aestheticone that is both larger than life and poetic in its simplicity.

On the nature of these immersive experiences, at this point, I suspect Ai would likely say that life itself is the most significant immersive experience and we best pay attention to it.

Vanity Fair: Since you were detained, did your perspective on China change? Did your perspective on the world change?

Ai Weiwei: Its supposed to change, but it doesnt change that much, because in China I was fighting for democracy and human rights. Here, in the U.S., particularly, you still have to fight for democracy and this freedom of speech. . . I realized human rights and human conditions are something every generation has to fight for. You cannot take it for granted. Its like milk; you cannot keep it fresh for very long.

I was reading a bit about your father, A Qng, who was considered one of the top modern Chinese poets and was later exiled and forced to work cleaning toilets, and I was curious to know if as a child you ever questionedis this how its supposed to be, or is this just my family. Did it all make sense?

In your society, people are always insisting on individualism. And people have very different beliefs, religious or non-religious. But in communist societies, its just one color, the color gray. So, its very hard for anybody even to question anything, because there is no reference. There is no such thing as difference. My family, if I think back, Im very privileged because I know my father was a poet and studied in Paris. He talked about Lorca. And that is very different from what other people talk about. And very different from Chairman Maos language or party propaganda. But at the same time there is a disconnect from reality. The reality is he has to clean the public toilets, 13 or 14 of them. And its not really a toilet. Its just a hole dug in the earth; theres no paper, no water. And the people just have to pick up some cotton from the fields, or some mud or clay to clean their ass. And theyre fine; thats life. Everybodys doing that. Its quite fair because everybody is doing it. So, you cannot really question anything. Because everything is given as is, almost like a fish doesnt question that it needs to be in the water, polluted or clean, there is no choice.

And was there a moment for you, when you came to New York the first time, of a kind of awakening of . . .

Oh, no. All I know about the United States is from a few writers like Mark TwainOn the Mississippi. When I was 10, I was so in love with that book. I thought, this is a fantastic story, very American, very boasting kind of epic. I think the Chinese revolution spirit was also influenced by that kind of language. Because you think youre creating a new world, a new land. So, I came to the United States. I land in New Yorktotally capitalism. (Laughs) Its such a harsh time for me.

Ai Weiwei's Soleil Levant made from over 3,500 lifejackets discarded by migrants on the Greek island of Lesbos at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg museum in Copenhagen.

From AP/REX/Shutterstock.

Did you come to study art ?

I started a semester at Parsons. For me, its like kindergarten for the rich kids. I was always very frustrated. I have come from a communist society, learned all the skills of the representative, representational art. Then to be with the kids, struggling with color or other things. . . . Then, I was out, and on my own hanging around. But I dont really want to accept the so-called American dream, to gain the security, or social status. I feel not interested. But to be an artist . . . it is complete nonsense. You want to sell a lot of work? Why? To whom?

I can imagine that would both amuse you and drive you crazy, that there is this art world that is rich people are buying art, you know.

Today I still dont understand the art world. The art world is like people taking drugs. It has its own reason, its own charming or high moment. But for people who dont take drugs, it doesnt seem real.

In terms of New York and this project that youre doing, were there artists that were an influence, in terms of thinking about this kind of work?

Nah, not really. I purposely disassociate myself from the so called . . . art world. I think if you really wanna become a relevant artist, you should explore some kind of new boundary or possibility. It is nonsense to repeat anybody, it doesnt matter who.

Your work both makes a political and cultural comment. At the same time, its also formally both beautiful and well-resolved. I feel like people dont often talk about the formal aspects.

I realized that Im a very passionate lover, but at the same time, I want to make a seduction beautiful. I cannot impose on anybody; you have to be very skillful. I really believe art comes out of a language that means you communicate well. The idea is very simple, but how to heighten the idea? Or have the question be double-faced? [That] is putting yourself in a vulnerable condition, and people can share that. . . . There is no elite in there; we are all the same. You cannot really teach art. It can only be discovered through yourself.

Is the word beauty of meaning to you?

It means . . . it means a lot. It means humanity. It means you have to understand the limit of our human perspective.

I find America and our political system to be absent of history or context, while I think of other countries as very invested in their history, where whatever you make you carry your history with you. Right now, we have a president who doesnt even know history . . .

But thats also an interesting characteristic, [and] thats why America can go very far. Its like a child lost in the woods; does he forget his way or where he came from? But its really testing how much strength you have if you can still find another mushroom or another strawberry. Or you get totally lost. We see a lot of cultures that carry history, but they cant really go forward because the history is so heavy.

Your upcoming New York piece was a long time in the evolution. We sort of talked about the difference between inside and outside, being inside a fence held in versus being outside trying to get in. Im curious about both the conception of the piece and the idea of doing it in multiple locations around the city.

There are different levels, because we all, were all migrants somehow . . . our parents . . . we all come from somewhere as outsiders and foreigners. And eventually we have only one planet, which is totally foreign in the cosmosunique. And so we have to recognize how much of a miracle life as a human species is, what kind of joy is even possible . . .

Is that not enough to make us want to protect each other? Do we still have to have nuclear bombs? Its ridiculous. To design a piece for a city thats like a miracle in that it has people from all over the world, a mixed society, with the most powerful and crazy minds and the most desperate people trying to find their next bread and butter, all mixed in the same location. Its like a stage for Shakespeare. Its not easy.

I want to co-exist with the conditions of those characters. And so fenceslike netsyou can look through and from both sides. It looks the same, and very often you cant even tell what side youre on because theres no other references there. But it clearly divides the in and out and the left-right, east-west, bottom or top.

And how about the site up by Trumps house?

Oh, thats a very, very, unique location, because Central Park and 59th Street are two blocks away from our president, or your president, or, you know, president of the universe. And he loves gold stuff. He doesnt hide intentions, but at the same time, he makes statements all the time. We never had a president like that; theyre all more uptight or . . . this guy doesnt really care that much. But he is going to challenge the democratic system, which is quite established for, for a long time. And he is gonna challenge that and how far he can go.

I wonder what kind of system he wants. Just the Trump system?

Its really a system of making a deal. Its like hes taken the space shuttle with all of us in it? (Laughs)

Do you feel like theres an element of performance to your work?

No. I dont enjoy that part. Performance means youre, youre not completely trusting what youre doing. . . . I think about my fathers generation, a whole generation of intellectuals has been swept away. No wordscompletely silent. There were a lot of intelligent people, a lot of good writers who could never really speak up. My voice owes so much to them. Every time I speak up, I think of the millions of people disappeared, and their voices were silenced. My voice is nothing, you know.

Do you feel like you now have freedom?

No, I would never feel that way. The more freedom you gain, the more responsibility you have, and then you feel such a burden. I would never have been introduced to refugees. . . . The Chinese used to say, If youre made of iron, how many nails can you make? A few thousand, or a hundred thousand?

Meaning how many nails you can make without using up your body?

Theres an absolute limit. Theres a time element. Theres a space element. If I talk to you, can I talk to other people?

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Update (6:03 P.M.): This post has been updated to reflect that certain works in the upcoming Ai exhibit Good Fences Make Good Neighbors have not yet been made final.

The artist standing next to his installation, Abolition of Alienated Labor, at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York. The piece, Pendleton said, was a timeline of sorts.

Nauman in his Galisteo, New Mexico, studio. The piece he is working on, Days and Giorni, would later be exhibited in the 2009 Venice Biennale.

The art worlds greatest disrupters at the Venice Biennale.

Here, Linzy poses as one of Linzys alter egos, Taiwan Braswell, before a show. I didnt expect many people to show up, the performance artist said. They did.

July standing in an elevator, which was a key part of her Whitney Biennial audio installation The Drifters.

The artist in Stykkishlmur, Iceland. The country's vast, awe-inspiring landscapes are often an inspiration for her works.

Kusama in her Infinity Mirrored Room. Said the artist: I am standing at the end of the universe. My heart is filled with impressions of the mysterious brightness of nature.

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The artist standing next to his installation, Abolition of Alienated Labor, at MoMA PS1 in Queens, New York. The piece, Pendleton said, was a timeline of sorts.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

Nauman in his Galisteo, New Mexico, studio. The piece he is working on, Days and Giorni, would later be exhibited in the 2009 Venice Biennale.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

The art worlds greatest disrupters at the Venice Biennale.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

Here, Linzy poses as one of Linzys alter egos, Taiwan Braswell, before a show. I didnt expect many people to show up, the performance artist said. They did.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

July standing in an elevator, which was a key part of her Whitney Biennial audio installation The Drifters.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

The artist in Stykkishlmur, Iceland. The country's vast, awe-inspiring landscapes are often an inspiration for her works.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

Kusama in her Infinity Mirrored Room. Said the artist: I am standing at the end of the universe. My heart is filled with impressions of the mysterious brightness of nature.

Courtesy of Jason Schmidt.

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Ai Weiwei Believes Americans Still Have to Fight for Democracy - Vanity Fair