EXPERT OPINION

Ai Weiwei: Games Opener ‘Brilliant’

Applauds Britain’s ‘self-confidence.’

Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei applauded the Opening Ceremony of the 2012 London Games in a review for British newspaper The Guardian on Saturday. The controversial artist, who helped design the main stadium for the 2008 Beijing Games, said that the spectacle imagined by director Danny Boyle ”was about Great Britain; it didn’t pretend it was trying to have global appeal.” Ai has become internationally known for his resistance to Chinese government policies in the aftermath of the 2008 Games. “Beijing’s Olympics were very grand,” he writes, but at the expense of the people. “The government didn’t care about people’s feelings because it was trying to create an image.”