Ai Weiwei...

Chinese artist Ai Weiwei currently has an exhibition on at the R&A in London. And it's fab. 

On entering the R&A courtyard, the sight of a small forest of large, leafless, bolted-together tree carcasses greets you. It looks slightly out-of-kilter but it's strangely beguiling, and you're drawn to the trees, made from bits of different dead trees, now Frankenstein-ed together. You can wander around this bizarre forest as you make your way to the R&A building proper. As you do so, there's an armchair made out of marble, plus a red BMW, where donors can deposit Lego bricks through the sunroof for the artist's next project.

It sounds really bloody strange. It's Lego, it's dead trees, it's a comfortable thing made out of a hard and cold material. It's playful and moving and thought-provoking and you haven't even made it through the doors of the exhibition yet. 

Al Weiwei is the Chinese artist the Chinese government wish would keep his mouth shut. They tried to imprison him, but the international outcry was so great he was freed. They tried to bankrupt him by claiming he hadn't paid taxes and presented him with a £1.5million bill. Well-wishers clubbed together and raised the money in record time. They said he couldn't talk about his imprisonment, so he created six half-size, replica cells showing the claustrophobic conditions he endured that were supposed to teach him obedience. 

Weiwei's a fascinating man and, in terms of the global arts scene, he's probably one of the most important living artists. His art comments on the role of China in the modern world and it offers a critique of how the superpower oppresses its citizens, while at the same time celebrating the spirit of those people and their astonishing craftsmanship.

Take Straight, one of the exhibitions at the R&A. It acts as a monument to the lives of the thousands of schoolchildren who died when an earthquake ravaged Sechuan Province in 2008 and many schools collapsed. On the wall is a stark and huge list of the dead, while on the floor is 150 tonnes of straightened rebar steel, the stuff used to strengthen buildings against earthquakes, stacked as a rolling landscape. 

It's claimed that one of the causes of this tragedy was local government corruption, which meant that cheap and sub-standard rebar was bought... meaning the buildings weren't built to standard and vulnerable to major tremors. It's both a strangely moving tribute to the victims and a brutal critique of those responsible. It's also a visually stunning piece.

There's so much to recommend in this exhibition. Straight was the thing that really wowed me, but other rooms have many other diverse items and installations, which vary in size but not in impact. It's a genuine joy.