Detained Artist Ai Weiwei Allowed to See Wife After Weeks Apart

World renowned Artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Photo: shanghaiist.com

For the first time in weeks, the world has heard indirectly from Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, who has been imprisoned without charges and held incommunicado since early April.

According to The New York Times, the Chinese government allowed Weiwei’s wife, Lu Quing, to visit him Sunday at an undisclosed location where, his lawyer said, Weiwei is living in “a form of house arrest, under supervision.” Accounts suggest that Weiwei is in relatively good physical condition, but Lu also told the AP that “without freedom to express himself he was not behaving naturally.” He is still being held against his will.

Weiwei’s scathing critiques of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through art and commentary lead to his arrest at a Beijing Airport April 3, despite CCP claims that his imprisonment involves economic crimes.

He was scheduled to visit Pittsburgh in May 2011, and his installation “Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads” was set to open at The Warhol Museum on the Northside in 2012.

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