Ai Weiwei is Bringing a Massive Camo-Covered Installation to New York City

This fall, acclaimed artist and activist Ai Weiwei will plant a major outdoor installation at New York’s Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park, kicking off the park’s Art X Freedom  program which commissions artists to create public, site-specific works circling visions of social justice.

Titled Camouflage, the installation will transform the park’s 3.5-acre landscape. An open-air structure clad in camouflage netting will rise at the park’s southernmost tip, cloaking over the bust of Roosevelt and his engraved Four Freedoms. The granite embankments flanking the park will also be covered, creating a shifting play of light and water, with views across to the United Nations headquarters.

Drawing on the park’s Louis Kahn-helmed design, history and symbolic link to the UN, the piece intends to spark reflection on vulnerability, protection and, in true Ai fashion, the slipperiness of truth. “The concept of this project is rooted in the English term camouflage defined in the Oxford Dictionary as both a means of disguise and concealment and as a tool for creating illusions to protect or to mislead,” Ai expressed in a recent statement.

“The artwork uses the symbolic nature of camouflage to spark a dialogue about what needs protection and what requires the removal of disguise to reveal truth. This is a challenging question, but addressing it is essential.”

Camouflage will be on view from September 10 through December 1. Head to the park’s website for more updates and information.

FDR Four Freedoms Park
1 FDR Four Freedoms Park,
Roosevelt Island, NY 10044