Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most prolific and provocative contemporary artists. Featuring over thirty works spanning more than twenty years, Ai Weiwei: According to What?explores universal topics of culture, history, politics, and tradition, showcasing the artist’s remarkably interdisciplinary career as a photographer, sculptor, architect, and activist.

These works spotlight issues of freedom of expression, as well as individual and human rights both in China and globally. Many use minimal forms and methods, while others manipulate traditional furniture, ancient pottery, and daily objects in ways that question cultural values and challenge political authority.

Ai is best known for projects such as his collaboration with Herzog & de Meuron on the 2008 Beijing Olympic National Stadium, as well as his embrace of the Internet and social media as a platform for his activism. Despite his arrest and eighty-one-day detention in 2011, Ai has continued to create art that transcends dualities between East and West.

Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, New York, 718-638-5000, Through August 10