1986
Self Portrait
From 1983 - 1993, Ai Weiwei lived in the East Village in New York City. There he began taking diary-like photographs — pictures of the people, places and encounters he experienced during his late twenties and early thirties. Around 1988, Ai Weiwei began to focus of the more gritty nature of urban decay. When he returned to Beijing in 1993, Ai Weiwei had more than 10,00 unprocessed photographs to sift through. The result was his New York Photographs series.

• 2011 Person of the Year Runner-Up: Ai Weiwei