Oil Spills (2006) is a powerful installation consisting of 11 porcelain pieces shaped like pools of spilled oil. Each work gleams with dark glaze, contrasting the toxic, disposable nature of oil with porcelain’s traditional association with beauty, fragility, and imperial Chinese craft. By merging these opposing ideas, Ai Weiwei challenges viewers to reconsider industrial progress, environmental damage, and the invisibility of harm within global systems.

Crafted with meticulous precision, the pieces scatter across the floor like a constellation of dark reflections, evoking both ecological disaster and cultural erosion. This work reflects Ai’s larger critique of state power, environmental neglect, and cultural erasure, using porcelain not as a relic but as a medium of subversion and resistance.

Oil Spills invites contemplation on how beauty and destruction coexist, and how cultural heritage can be reimagined to confront urgent contemporary issues.

This work was featured in the exhibition Ai Weiwei: Tradition and Dissent at the Springfield Museums D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts (2021–2022).

Ai Weiwei’s art is held in the permanent collections of major institutions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York), Tate Modern (London), the Guggenheim Museum (New York), and the National Gallery of Victoria (Melbourne).