Exhibition Opening--Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads August 20, 2011

The Zodiac Project is contemporary artist Ai Weiwei's first major public sculpture. For this monumental work, Weiwei has recreated the twelve bronze animal heads that once adorned the Zodiac Fountain in Yuan Ming Yuan, the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. Cast around 1750, the original heads were looted by Anglo-French troops who took part in the destruction of Yuan Ming Yuan in 1860 during the Second Opium War. The heads remain a potent trigger for Chinese nationalist sentiments. Weiwei's new work suggests a dialogue about the fate of art objects that exist within dynamic and sometimes volatile cultural and political settings.

Official Website: http://www.lacma.org/art/exhibition/ai-weiwei-circle-animalszodiac-heads