Returned to lender The Met accepts temporary loans of art both for short-term exhibitions and for long-term display in its galleries.
Ruyi
Ai Weiwei Chinese
Not on view
Ai’s reinterpretation of a ruyi (wish fulfillment) scepter, an emblem of longevity and good fortune, recontextualizes its traditional iconography to insinuate new layers of meaning. The ruyi’s form is derived from a mushroom-shaped fungus that for more than two millennia was thought to confer immortality. Ai’s scepter riffs on this belief by making its health-granting properties anatomically specific. Composed of ceramic human organs, Ai’s scepter calls to mind not long life but humankind’s physical vulnerability.
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