Ai Weiwei And Camber Studio Create A Thought-Provoking Pavilion In New York

A pavilion by Ai Weiwei and Camber Studio at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Park in New York meditated on the safeguards of democracy.

Ai Weiwei + Camber Studio Envision A Pavilion With A Message

• Dozens of engineers and installers directed by Ai Weiwei
• 22,000 square feet of camouflage netting
• 13 pine poles
• 24 feet tall
• 4,000 pounds of steel weldments
• 2 months on view

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An early rendering shows the basic structure of Camouflage, a temporary pavilion at Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms State Park in New York by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei and Brooklyn-based design and fabrication outfit Camber Studio—the inaugural commission by the park conservancy’s Art X Freedom initiative, which addresses the fundamental human rights proclaimed by the former president that are currently under attack.

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The six Douglas-fir bases that anchored the pavilion were made in Camber’s Red Hook workshop.

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Over two weeks, a system of Southern yellow pine posts were installed at the park’s tip, a granite plaza called the Room.

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Custom steel clevises and 600 linear feet of ratchet straps secured the posts.

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Over the poles and embankments, workers draped and pinned the Weiwei-designed netting, its pattern derived from the camouflage he saw during a recent visit to Ukraine, but here printed with feline imagery that nodded to the nearby Wildlife Freedom Foundation Cat Sanctuary.

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The 4-acre park, which memorializes Roosevelt’s ideals of freedom of speech and worship and freedom from want and fear articulated in his 1941 State of the Union address, was designed by architect Louis Kahn in 1973 but completed posthumously in 2012. 

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At dusk for Camouflage, which ran September to November and was Weiwei’s first major artwork in New York since 2017, the Ukrainian proverb “For some people, war is war; for others war is the dear mother” would be lit up in neon.

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Weiwei’s netting was meant to simultaneously evoke vulnerability and protection, and visitors were invited to tie it with ribbons inscribed with their personal reflections on freedom.

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Sited near sculptor Jo Davidson’s 1934 bronze bust of Roosevelt, Camouflage and Art X Freedom marked the 80th anniversary of WWII’s end and the UN General Assembly.