This article was originally published by The Architect's Newspaper as "Ai Weiwei?s fences take on borders and belonging in NYC exhibit."

?Arch,? Washington Square Arch, Washington Square Park, Manhattan. Image © Jason Wyche

This article was originally published by The Architect's Newspaper as "Ai Weiwei?s fences take on borders and belonging in NYC exhibit."In Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, a new exhibition by Ai Weiwei presented by the Public Art Fund, the artist and activist takes on the security fence as a medium for urban intervention, with New York City as his canvas. Some of the works might be easy to miss, like the chain link fences suspended over a gap between two buildings on East 7th Street, just steps from Ai?s old basement apartment. But others, like the monumental Gilded Cage at Doris Freedman Plaza in Central Park, or Arch, nested under the Washington Square arch, are unmistakable and grandiose.
"Gilded Cage," by Ai Weiwei, at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park. Image © Jason Wyche

The exhibit, which spans the five boroughs, opens to the public on October 12 and is comprised of more than 300 pieces. Like the Robert Frost poem it references, the show examines the tension and contradictions surrounding borders and those excluded by them, inspired by Ai?s concerns about the global refugee crisis and related geopolitical conflicts. Many of the city sites selected by Ai, once a New ...