ArtSEA: A massive Ai Weiwei retrospective lands at Seattle Art Museum

Ai is perhaps best known for his full-throated criticism of the Chinese government, calling for greater transparency and more forgiving free-speech laws. After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake — which left 90,000 dead including 5,300 children, many of them students — the artist took to social media sites like Twitter as a means to condemn the government for repressing death toll numbers and shunting responsibility. 

In “Snake Ceiling” (2008), a curvy line composed of children’s…