BEIJING — A Swiss gallery owner who represents Ai Weiwei, the dissident artist and international celebrity recently let out of detention, said Wednesday that Mr. Ai was working on his art again, even though he could not do interviews or meet with journalists because of the conditions of his release.
The gallery owner, Urs Meile, said in an e-mail that he had visited Mr. Ai at his home from June 30 to July 3 and that Mr. Ai was in good health.
“The detention could not break his incomparable presence and vigor, his humor and his alertness!” Mr. Meile said in the e-mail. “He is full of energy and again intensively dedicating himself to his artistic creation.”
Mr. Meile added that Mr. Ai “is able to work without interruption, to make plans and to realize projects together with his team.”
Mr. Meile did not give details on what kinds of projects Mr. Ai might be pursuing. Before he was detained, Mr. Ai, 54, was seeking to expose the use of paid commentators on the Internet by the Communist Party, according to a report in late June by Information, a Danish news organization. Mr. Ai had spoken about the project with a journalist for Information. The commentators referred to by Mr. Ai are believed to be paid each time they post something that bolsters or repeats the government position on a certain issue.
Mr. Ai’s projects have been increasingly political in recent years. Perhaps the most controversial was an exhibition involving school backpacks meant to evoke the thousands of children who died in school collapses in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan Province. Parents of the dead children have been lobbying the central government to look into the role of corruption in the shoddy construction of schools, but the government has tried to silence the parents by paying them off or detaining them.
Mr. Ai was beaten by police officers in a hotel room in Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, when he traveled to the province to look further into the school collapses and support the parents.
Mr. Ai was detained by the police in April at the international airport in Beijing as he was about to board a flight to Hong Kong. He was let go 81 days later, his normally expansive girth considerably diminished. Family members and supporters said he had been detained because of his political candor, but Chinese officials said the Beijing police were looking into accusations of tax evasion. Mr. Ai was released only after he “confessed” to tax fraud, according to Xinhua, the state news agency. Mr. Ai has been allowed to travel around Beijing, but he is barred from leaving the city.
Mr. Meile’s gallery is in Beijing’s arts neighborhood of Caochangdi, where Mr. Ai has his studio and home.
“He’s contriving, discussing, debating, reflecting, as we know him,” Mr. Meile wrote. “With the support of his wife Lu Qing, his team and his friends he is about to review and digest the past two and a half months.”