There is no material that Ai Weiwei has not transformed over time into a political message: steel, porcelain, marble, toy bricks, life jackets, everyday objects. 

And in “Aftershock”, the exhibition with which the Chinese artist returns to Italy — more specifically to MAXXI L’Aquila — these materials come together as an archive of shocks: often open, never fully resolved fractures that traverse bodies, cities, and memory. 

Open from April 29 to September 6, 2026, the exhibition curated by Tim Marlow, Director and CEO of the Design Museum in London, brings together about seventy works, some of which are previously unseen, including installations, videos, photographs, and sculptures. 

The exhibition arrives in the year when L’Aquila is the Italian Capital of Culture and occupies the spaces of Palazzo Ardinghelli, one of the most significant examples of recovery and conversion following the earthquake that struck the Abruzzo city in 2009. 

At the centre of the exhibition is the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, a decisive event in Ai Weiwei’s practice, which creates an immediate bridge with the experience and memory of Italian visitors.

Not surprisingly, the dialogue with Palazzo Ardinghelli begins immediately, in the courtyard, where a veil from the “Camouflage Nets” series reworks camouflage patterns, allowing figures of cats — innocent victims of human conflicts — to emerge.

In the same space, the LED work “Кому війна, кому мати рідна” takes up a Ukrainian proverb and introduces the theme of war as an ambiguous, unequal experience capable of altering the value of things.

experience capable of changing the value of things.

The most powerful core of the exhibition remains “Straight”, a pivotal work in Ai Weiwei’s practice, made from steel rods salvaged from schools that collapsed during the Sichuan earthquake.

As Marlow stated: “All of Ai Weiwei's work invites us to look at the world in different ways, through different objects and materials. Although it is rooted in the artist's personal experience, it has a universal resonance: Ai Weiwei's incessant struggle for the right of individuals to express themselves freely and not be subject to the illegal dictates of authoritarian regimes stems from the difficulties he himself faced, as well as his constant concern for those who do not have the power to resist.”