<p>LISBON, Portugal &mdash; Dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is putting on the biggest show of his career, and he is doing it in a place he’s fallen in love with: Portugal.</p>
<p>The world-renowned visual artist’s new exhibition, “Rapture,” opens in the Portuguese capital Lisbon on Friday.</p>
<p>Ai arrived in Portugal almost two years ago and says he has no plans to return to Germany or England, where he has also lived since leaving China in 2015.</p>
<p>“I have a great feeling” about Portugal, the artist said Thursday. “This is a place I’m staying.”</p>
<p>Ai’s show in São Paulo in 2018 covered twice the area of the Lisbon exhibit but had fewer works on display. </p>
<p>“Rapture” is being presented in a long, low, riverside building that housed Portugal’s national rope factory starting in the 18th century and now hosts temporary art exhibitions. Ai’s show runs until Nov. 28.</p>
<p>The 85 pieces include some of Ai’s iconic works, as well as new ones produced exclusively in Portugal. </p>
<p>“Forever Bicycles,” from 2015, a giant sculpture using 960 stainless steel bicycles as building blocks, stands at the entrance to the building. Ai’s 16-meter-long (52-foot-long) black inflatable boat with human figures, which alludes to the migration crisis, is also in Lisbon, as are some other of his well-known installations, sculptures, videos and photographs.</p>
<p>Ai notes, however, that most of the works “have never met each other” and are appearing in the same place for the first time.</p>
<p>Ai was arrested at Beijing’s airport in April 2011 and held for 81 days without explanation during a wider crackdown on dissent. He moved to Europe after Chinese authorities returned his passport.</p>
<p>He has traveled across Portugal visiting craftspeople and manufacturers who use traditional Portuguese methods and materials such as marble, textiles, hand-painted tiles and cork.</p>
<p>His experimentation has yielded a self-portrait sculpture in cork, a cut-out world map in fabric that stands about 1.5 meters (5 feet) high, a 40-meter-long (130-feet-long) rug, and a marble cylinder almost 2 meters (6.5 feet) high.</p>
<p>Marcello Dantas, the show’s Brazilian curator, says that Ai arrived in Portugal for the first time in 2019 on a flight that landed at 8 a.m. By lunchtime, he had bought a house near the farming town of Montemor-o-Novo, about 100 kilometers (60 miles) southeast of Lisbon</p>
<p>“I always make decisions by my personal instinct,” Ai said. “I feel comfortable here.”</p>
<p>The artist ticks off what appeals to him about the country: the relatively slow pace of life, the “very open” people, the “very acceptable” food and the abundant sunshine.</p>
<p>Ai says the limits on movement during the COVID-19 pandemic furnished him with “a most productive time.” Over the past year or so, he made three feature-length films in addition to art pieces. He has a book coming out later this year and another exhibition planned for this summer in the northern Portuguese city of Porto.</p>
<p>Remaining in Portugal was “probably the best decision I ever made,” he says.</p>