Ai Weiwei unveils his epic new Australian work: ‘90% of art is just garbage. Real art questions the existing order’

From his farm in Portugal, the acclaimed artist speaks about war, peace, the state of the world – and his 40 metre sculpture Mushrooms, on Sydney Harbour “It’s like a film set.

Like it’s not real,” the bemused Uber driver says as we pass through a succession of silent rural villages washed with milky sunlight.

He’s right: signs of human life are weirdly absent during our windy journey through the Alentejo.

I’m making my way to Ai Weiwei’s secluded farm, nestled deep in the Portuguese countryside, where arguably the world’s best known living artist has quietly lived for the last six years.

When I arrive, I am ushered inside a vast cathedral of a building, a replica of Ai’s erstwhile, and controversially demolished, studio in Shanghai. The space is cavernous.

It’s gridded by huge wooden columns and its dizzyingly high ceilings are webbed with beams. There is no artwork on the walls, nor are there any obvious signs of production or activity.

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