Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is putting on the biggest show of his career, and he is doing it in a place he's fallen in love with: Portugal. The world-renowned visual artist's new exhibition, "Rapture," opens in the Portuguese capital Lisbon today. Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015. "I have a great feeling" about Portugal, the artist said Thursday. "This is a place I'm staying." "Rapture" is being presented in a long, low, riverside building that housed Portugal's national rope factory starting in the 18th century and now hosts temporary art exhibitions. Ai's show runs until Nov. 28. The 85 pieces include some of Ai's iconic works, as well as new ones produced exclusively in Portugal. Ai's show in Sao Paulo in 2018 covered twice the area of the Lisbon exhibit but had fewer works on display. "Forever Bicycles," from 2015, a giant sculpture using 960 stainless steel bicycles as building blocks, stands at the entrance to the building. Ai's 52-foot-long black inflatable boat with human figures, which alludes to the migration crisis, is also in Lisbon, as are some other of his well-known installations, sculptures, videos and photographs. Ai says the limits on movement during the covid-19 pandemic furnished him with "a most productive time." Over the past year or so, he made three feature-length films in addition to art pieces. He has a book coming out later this year and another exhibition planned for this summer in the northern Portuguese city of Porto.
• A court hearing has been set for Aug. 30 regarding whether John Hinckley Jr. -- the man who tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan -- can live without restrictions in the home he shares with his mother and brother in a gated community in Virginia. U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman set the date during a teleconference Thursday that included Hinckley's attorney and a federal prosecutor. Hinckley, 66, left a Washington psychiatric hospital in 2016 and has been living under increasingly fewer restrictions in a house that sits along a golf course in Williamsburg. Barry Levine, Hinckley's lawyer, has been arguing for Hinckley's unconditional release and points to a recent risk assessment that says Hinckley is stable and unlikely to reoffend. The exact details of what unconditional release would mean for Hinckley were not discussed during Thursday's teleconference. But the U.S. government opposes unconditional release, according to a brief filed with the court in early May. The government is also having its own expert examine Hinckley to determine "whether or not he would pose a danger to himself or others."
