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Ai Weiwei — Odyssey
Ai Weiwei

Odyssey

2017

This screenprint presents a powerful visual narrative of displacement and migration through a series of horizontal bands depicting scenes of conflict, movement, and human struggle. The composition layers military machinery and warfare imagery in the upper sections with increasingly densely packed groups of figures walking, gathering, and crossing borders throughout the middle and lower portions. Barbed wire fences and barriers appear at the bottom, accompanied by text fragments that underscore themes of exclusion and resistance. The monochromatic palette and woodcut-like aesthetic create a stark, documentary quality that transforms personal journeys into collective testimony. The work serves as a contemporary meditation on humanitarian crises and the human cost of displacement.

Medium
Screenprint
Dimensions

Notes

Lot 192 in EHC Essentials: Modern and Contemporary on Artsy (May 19, 2026). Edition of 1.

🔨 Auction Lot

EHC Essentials: Modern and Contemporary

May 19, 2026

Lot 192

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About this work

Ai Weiwei, Odyssey, 2017

This screenprint presents a powerful visual narrative of displacement and migration through a series of horizontal bands depicting scenes of conflict, movement, and human struggle. The composition layers military machinery and warfare imagery in the upper sections with increasingly densely packed groups of figures walking, gathering, and crossing borders throughout the middle and lower portions. Barbed wire fences and barriers appear at the bottom, accompanied by text fragments that underscore themes of exclusion and resistance. The monochromatic palette and woodcut-like aesthetic create a stark, documentary quality that transforms personal journeys into collective testimony. The work serves as a contemporary meditation on humanitarian crises and the human cost of displacement.

Medium
Screenprint
Dimensions
91.4 x 61 cm
Year
2017
Edition
of 1
Seen at
EHC Fine Art Auction, Unknown

Related themes

Collective Narrative, Documentary Aesthetics, Conceptual Art, Borders and Barriers, Printmaking, War And Conflict, Protest Art, Screenprint, Social Commentary, Black And White, Identity And Belonging, Figurative Art, Migration, Displacement, Large Scale Print, Political Art, Humanitarian Art, Human Rights, Global Issues, Contemporary, Refugee Crisis

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Collected by

Sarah Greenspan