Long before he was a star of the international art world and a target of the Chinese government, the artist Ai Weiwei was at the center of an obscure group of Chinese cultural emigrés in the East Village, a community that he documented in some 10,000 photographs in the decade that he lived there, from 1983 to 1993. Now, while Mr. Ai remains under detention in China, without formal charges, the Asia Society is preparing to open an exhibition of 227 of his New York photographs. They show not only important East Village events like Wigstock and local characters like Allen Ginsberg, but also humble gatherings in Mr. Ai’s Third Street apartment featuring people like the artist Xu Bing, the filmmaker Chen Kaige and the composer Tan Dun, all now major Chinese cultural figures who were then toiling in immigrant obscurity.
In a telephone interview the director of the Asia Society Museum, Melissa Chiu, said that she had been planning the exhibition with Mr. Ai before his detention on April 3. He had selected the photographs and made a set of prints, but since those prints were stranded in his Beijing studio, which has been inaccessible since his detention, a new set had to be made for the exhibition, which will run from June 29 to Aug. 14. (A similar show was mounted in Beijing in 2009 by the Three Shadows Photography Art Center, which is helping the Asia Society organize the new show.) Asked how Mr. Ai’s arrest had affected the show, Ms. Chiu said that she thought it was now more important than ever, since it sheds light on a period that was formative for him both artistically and politically. “It also gives voice to an artist who has essentially been silenced since April 3,” she said.