Ai Weiwei: Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads (Bronze)

The twelve zodiac heads decorating the water-clock fountain at Yuanmingyuan were looted by foreign troops and taken to Europe as spoils. A few of the heads (and one forgery) reappeared at auction, returning attention to this dark chapter of Western colonialism and China’s “century of national humiliation.” Seven of the twelve heads have been donated to Chinese museums since 2000, their return home symbolic of China’s present economic and political might.

Because they are atypical of traditional culture of the Han (China’s largest ethnic group), Ai Weiwei wonders why the original heads are considered national treasures. Designed by Europeans and catering to the Qianlong emperor’s insatiable desire for novelty and foreign exotica, the zodiac heads inherently straddle notions of the East and the West.

Because only seven of the original heads are known, Ai used various Chinese sources to complete his circle of animals, understanding those would be imperfect models. To depict the dragon, Ai and his team looked at embroidery on official robes in the Ming and Qing dynasties, among other references, translating that research into a hybrid image akin to the seven surviving heads.

Ai says, “Without twelve it’s not a zodiac.” This image of a dragon zodiac head is from a gilded set Ai created on a scale similar to the surviving 18th-century originals. In 2025, SAM displayed one of the small gilded sets of zodiac heads in Ai, Rebel: The Art and Activism of Ai Weiwei. The zodiac heads displayed in the Olympic Sculpture Park are identical in shape, but they are not gilded and are gigantic in size.