Ai Weiwei: Button Up! A captivating, varied and historical series of exhibits

Review by Mark Rothwell

Four years in the making and four weeks to hang, Ai Weiwei, 68 years old, presents a captivating, varied and historical series of exhibits in a vast space for monumental artworks at the Aviva Studios in Manchester.

Button Up!, the title of the exhibition, stems from an experience Ai Weiwei had during his detention by the Chinese Public Security for 81 days in or near Beijing in 2011. Apparently, his trouser button came off during his incarceration which took days to repair by his captors, leaving an object that acts as a reminder of his ordeal.

Nineteen separate artworks reveal Weiwei’s artistic output in pieces that illustrate a range of ideas, a range of concerns, such as a natural disaster, that inform works including Eight-Nation Alliance Flags (2024), China Flag (2023), Teahouse (2011), Porcelain Pillar with Refugee Motif (2017), Law of the Journey (2017, 2025), La Commedia Umana (2017-2021) and Nian Nian (Commemoration)(2021).

Ai Weiwei says, quoted from one of the many plinths in the exhibition space guiding viewers through each exhibit, about his huge Eight-Nation Alliance Flags (2024) “Several years ago I purchased a huge number of buttons from A.Brown & Co Buttons in Croydon. There are more than 9,000 kinds of buttons and they weigh almost 30 tonnes”. The buttons took two years to sort through before being used to sew onto fabric and make the flags. Ai Weiwei goes on to say “These artworks reference the textile factories that made this city (Manchester), rich”.

In 1900-01, eight nations, all European bar Japan and, arguably, Russia, invaded China to open trade ports. “The buttons, symbolic of industrial manufacturing, are transformed into large-scale graphics representing the flags of these eight nations”. Each flag, suspended from the ceiling, refer to each nation’s flag in 1900-01 consequently most of them appear different to what they do today. Ai Weiwei again, “The flags were made by 33 artisans in Shandong and took 281 days to complete”.

Nian Nian, (Commemoration)(2021) is an audio installation which informs the gallery visitor of the name of each of the 5,197 children who perished in the Sichuan earthquake of 2008. The recitation lasts for 39 days, 24 hours a day. 300 volunteers took part.

The exhibition explores colonialism, the first industrial revolution, in Manchester, of course, trade, history, materials and slavery while viewing a 200-year span of developmental history that is also the history of Manchester.

Ai Weiwei, dressed in a white buttoned shirt and slacks, spoke to an audience about the principal triggers for his ideas and the world around us today including the phenomenon of migration and the actions of governments, specifically the capturing of the leader of Venezuela by force by the United States of America.

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Other artists who are known for their large scale artworks are Anselm Kiefer, Damien Hirst, his The Virgin Mary is a case in point, and Christo and Jeanne-Claude known for wrapping fabric around trees, islands and buildings such as the L’Arc de Triomphe in Paris and the Reichstag in Berlin.

The exhibition runs until 6 September 2026 (closed Mondays) at The Warehouse, Aviva Studios, Water Street, Manchester M3 4JQ

Tickets from £15

www.factory international.org