For more news visit ☛ http://english.ntdtv.com<br />Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision<br />Follow us on Facebook ☛ http://me.lt/9P8MUn<br /><br />And on Thursday, influential British magazine Art Review named Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei as the most powerful artist of 2011.<br /><br />Ironically, Ai became a more powerful public figure after the Chinese regime attempted to silence him. Ai was imprisoned for 81 days as part of a sweeping crackdown on dissidents, human rights lawyers, and critics, though he was charged with tax evasion.<br /><br />But the detention had the opposite result—it skyrocketed the artist to international fame and only increased the demand for his artwork. According to the magazine, "Ai's power and influence derive from the fact that his work and his words have become catalysts for international political debates that affect every nation on the planet: freedom of expression, nationalism, economic power, the Internet, the rights of the human being."<br /><br />Though Ai remains under a gag order in his home in Beijing, it seems his art is still speaking loudly.
