Day 174/18. Ai Weiwei - Yorkshire Sculpture Park

We visited the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on our way back to the south of england today.
Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads (2010), a dramatic group of 12 bronze animal heads that has been on a worldwide tour since May 2011, making a colossal migration through Europe, Asia and the Americas.See extra image for a panorama of all 12 huge heads.


Ai reinterpreted the 12 bronze heads representing the traditional Chinese zodiac that once adorned the famed fountain-clock of the Yuanming Yuan, the imperial summer palace retreat in Beijing. Ransacked in 1860 during the Second Opium War by the British and French, only seven of the original heads have been returned to China – the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, horse, monkey, and boar. The locations of the other five – dragon, snake, goat, rooster, and dog – are still unknown.
For the duration of their exhibition in Chicago in 2014, the heads were all hooded, an eery reminder that the artist was still confined in China.
In 2015, Ai was awarded the Ambassador of Conscience Award by Amnesty International.
In 2016 he was permitted to travel and flew to Prague to see the sculptures for the first time in person.