Ai Weiwei's 'Translocation-Transformation' at Belvedere and 21er Haus in Vienna

Ai Weiwei's dual exhibition 'Translocation-Transformation' in Vienna features two major installations: 'F Lotus' at the Belvedere Palace park and the reassembled Wang Family Ancestral Hall at the 21er Haus. 'F Lotus' consists of over a thousand life jackets in a Gothic 'F' shape floating on the Belvedere's ornamental pond, recovered by the artist from Lesbos, Greece, alluding to migrant deaths. At the 21er Haus, Ai Weiwei has reconstructed a late Ming dynasty wooden ancestral hall with 1,300 original pieces, displayed in the museum's central hall. The exhibition is the most visited at the 21er Haus since its 2011 reopening, with a projected 100,000 visitors by its close on November 20, 2016. The artist's earlier work 'Hoher Dachstein' (2010) involved transporting a boulder from Sichuan, China, to the summit of Hoher Dachstein mountain in Austria, commemorating the 70,000 victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Ai Weiwei cites philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein as an inspiration.