Hexie is a new work by the artist for his retrospective at the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum. The title means literally "river crab"--hence the innumerable porcelain crustaceans in the work--but it is also a pun on the Chinese word "harmonious"--which has come to mean censorship in the government's official attempt to build a "harmonious society."
According to What? The Ai Weiwei Retrospective in Washington D.C.
The show takes its name from a 1964 Jasper Johns work and explores the controversial Chinese artist-activist's attempts to make art a way of looking at the world--and challenging its authorities--rather than accumulating artifacts.