Chris Brown's Canadian summer shows cancelled

Controversial American R&B singer Chris Brown won't be performing in four Canadian cities later this month after all, after the promoter of the Energy Rush festival announced he has been dropped as the main act.

Brown was scheduled to headline the Energy Rush festival in Halifax, Toronto, Saint John and Winnipeg.

"After ongoing conversation and consultation with this year's headline act Chris Brown, and in light of the performer's recent personal and health-related issues, a decision has been made to cancel all four scheduled performances," said Stephen Tobin, owner of Drop Entertainment Group, in a statement Monday.

The promoter said Energy Rush can't go ahead without a headliner so it has been postponed until next year.

In Halifax, Brown's show at Alderney Landing came under fire as soon as it was announced.

Many ardently argued the city shouldn't support Brown, who was convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend, pop star Rihanna, in 2009. The show stoked outcry on social media, with some people calling for a boycott.

Sponsors pull support

A handful of sponsors — Rogers, Molson Coors Brewing Co., esthetics company Touch of Radiance and the Halifax campus of the Centre for Arts and Technology — pulled their support once Brown was revealed to be the headline act.

Even Halifax Mayor Mike Savage voiced his disapproval.

Tobin said the cancellation has nothing to do with the controversy.

Brown's publicist Nicole Perna said the performer needs time to focus on himself and a new album.

Energy Rush organizers said this isn't the end of their plans and they hope to reschedule the show for next year. They said the event had strong ticket sales, although they didn't specify any numbers.

Refunds will be available starting on Thursday.

The controversy in Halifax came as a judge in Los Angeles revoked Brown's probation in July after reading details of an alleged hit-and-run accident in May. Brown was not ordered to go to jail.

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Actor Lee Thompson Young dies in apparent suicide

Lee Thompson Young, who began his acting career as the teenage star of the Disney Channel's The Famous Jett Jackson and was featured in the film Friday Night Lights and the series Rizzoli & Isles, was found dead Monday, police said. He was 29.

There was no official cause of death, but Young's manager, Paul Baruch, said the actor "tragically took his own life."

Young's body was found at his North Hollywood home by police Monday morning after he failed to show up for work on TNT's crime drama Rizzoli & Isles, police Officer Sally Madera said. The Los Angeles Fire Department was summoned and pronounced him dead at the scene, she said.

Los Angeles police robbery-homicide detectives and the Los Angeles County coroner's office were investigating because it is a high-profile death, she said. Madera had no details about the cause of death.

Multiple roles

In the TNT series, Young played fledgling police Detective Barry Frost, who's computer savvy but squeamish. Earlier Monday, the channel announced it was renewing the series that stars Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

"We are beyond heartbroken at the loss of this sweet, gentle, good-hearted, intelligent man. ... Lee will be cherished and remembered by all who knew and loved him, both on- and offscreen, for his positive energy, infectious smile and soulful grace," TNT, studio Warner Bros. and series producer Janet Tamaro said in a joint statement.

They sent condolences to his mother and other family members.

According to a biography from TNT, Young was inspired to pursue acting when, at age, 10, he played Martin Luther King Jr. in a play in Young's hometown of Columbia, South Carolina.

In 1998, Young began starring in The Famous Jett Jackson, playing a TV action hero who returns to his roots for a less high-profile life. The series ran until 2001.

Young followed it with roles in TV series, including The Guardian, Scrubs and Smallville and in the films Akeelah and the Bee and The Hills Have Eyes II. Young joined Rizzoli & Isles when it debuted in 2010.

"I'm the youngest member of the cast, so I really take advantage of the wealth of knowledge that I find myself surrounded by," Young said in a 2011 interview with the website Rolling Out.

Young, a graduate of University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, was an as an avid photographer, traveller and student of martial arts, according to his biography.

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Splinter Cell: Blacklist a high-stakes gamble for Ontario video game scene

A group of international terrorists who call themselves The Engineers are launching an escalating series of deadly attacks on the United States. Their ultimatum to the U.S.: pull back your military presence from multiple locations around the world or the attacks, code named the Blacklist, will continue.

The plot might sound like a testosterone-driven Hollywood film, but this a made-in-Canada video game: Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist. The first game from Ubisoft Toronto hits stores today on all major videogame platforms, and the stakes are high for the studio's team, as well as for the province's video game industry.

In 2009, the Ontario government announced a $263 million grant to Ubisoft, the Paris-based game company, to found a Toronto studio with the intention of creating 800 jobs in 10 years. Four years later, Ubisoft Toronto has a staff of about 300 and says it's well ahead of schedule in terms of the 800-job target.

Toronto has become known for critical darlings produced in the indie sector, including DrinkBox Games' Guacamelee and Capy Games' Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP. But the rationale for the grant was that a blockbuster AAA game the likes of Splinter Cell could attract greater numbers of both experienced and aspiring developers to the city.

The province is also supporting other studios with financial incentives. Rockstar Toronto, for example, received government assistance to start an expansion at a location in Oakville, Ont. The studio, which has worked on the Grand Theft Auto series and 2012's Max Payne 3, reportedly received $2 million in grants.

But Ubisoft Toronto is by far the Ontario government's biggest gamble in the games industry. And this first project is no minor game or a second-line title — Blacklist is the sixth entry in a longstanding series of espionage action games. So this week, all eyes in the Canadian game development industry are on Ubisoft Toronto to see whether it can deliver.

Splinter Cell

The most controversial change in Blacklist was the loss of voice actor Michael Ironside, who had played the role of the grizzled Fisher since the series' outset. (Courtesy Ubisoft)

Debuting in 2002 with combined sales of more than 22 million copies, Splinter Cell is one of Ubisoft's tentpole franchises alongside the likes of Assassin's Creed and Rayman.

Several members of Ubisoft's long-standing Montreal team moved to Toronto to seed the company's second major Canadian location. Managing director Jade Raymond, one of the producers of 2007's Assassin's Creed, was joined by creative director Maxime Béland and senior producer Alex Parizeau.

Béland's no stranger to the pressure. "The sad answer is that every game I've made has the most pressure I've ever seen," he told CBC News.

"It's always stressful, it's always big. The pressure is always at the maximum. And I don't think it's only on AAA games. If you're passionate, if you're an artist or a creator and you're working on something that you care about, you self-impose stress and tension and all that onto yourself."

In 2006 he headed the launch of Rainbow Six: Vegas, another game in the Tom Clancy universe. He also served as creative director for 2010's Splinter Cell: Conviction. But its introduction of more gunplay, direct confrontation with enemies and an overall greater emphasis on action over stealth soured some fans on the series. (Fun fact: when you type Maxime Béland into Google's search bar, the first autocomplete phrase that appears is "Maxime Béland ruined Splinter Cell.")

Criticism from gamers didn't seem to sway the actual critics, however: Splinter Cell: Conviction was praised as the best game in the series, and currently enjoys an 85/100 rating on Metacritic, the reviews aggregator site.

Taking risks

The team is taking even more risks with Blacklist. Early previews in the games press have been promising, but fans have so far expressed a more reserved optimism.

The most controversial change was the loss of voice actor Michael Ironside, who had played the role of the grizzled Fisher since the series' outset.

Ironside was replaced by Edmonton actor Eric Johnson, who appeared on television's Rookie Blue and Smallville. Ubisoft said it wanted voice talent that could also perform motion capture for their characters.

The team has also made changes to Splinter Cell's strategic recipe, allowing players to put a greater emphasis on lurking in the shadows rather than running and gunning, a return to the approach taken by the series' older games.

Game director Patrick Redding said that getting that balance between accessibility and complexity was a challenge that he embraced as a self-described masochist.

"At the end of the day, regardless of how great the production values are, or how big your budget is, games are based on mechanics," he says. "That's what makes them different from other mediums. It's what allows them to be interactive, it's what allows games to produce experiences, or allows players to produce experiences for themselves that are unique. It's what gives games their power."

Early feedback

Several members of Ubisoft's Montreal team moved to Toronto to help start the new studio, including managing director Jade Raymond, one of the producers of the 2007 hit game Assassin's Creed. (Courtesy Ubisoft)

Despite the pressure for success, the team still managed to have a bit of fun with shout-outs to the studio's home town. One of the multiplayer maps, while based on the U.K. Millennium Mills, is named Landsowne Mill, after the Toronto street closest to Ubisoft's studio. And minor characters were given the names of local sports players, including the Blue Jays' J.P. Arencibia and the Maple Leafs' Leo Komarov.

But with the amount of provincial grant money and so many jobs riding on the success of the game, the question is whether the changes and themes chosen by the Toronto development team will resonate with an international audience.

The early signs are positive. On Metacritic, the game currently boasts an 82/100 average rating. The National Post said that, despite "some rough patches," Ubisoft Toronto has made "a game which excels by making all of its moving pieces work together in unison."

Raymond adds that the pre-orders for the game at retail were filled and stores have had to order more copies to meet the demand.

And even as the champagne corks are popped for the launch of Blacklist, the studio is already working on five separate projects, including collaborating with Ubisoft Montreal on an unannounced game in the Assassin's Creed series.

"Setting up a new studio from scratch, hiring over 300 people in three years and shipping the biggest game ever to come out of Ontario and the biggest game in the franchise to date is quite an accomplishment," says Raymond.

"The game industry and our team here is full of people who want to outdo ourselves each time, so we're setting the bar even higher with all of our next projects."

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Elmore Leonard, Get Shorty crime novelist, dies at 87

Acclaimed American crime novelist Elmore Leonard, whose witty, gritty and undeniably cool stories were turned into Hollywood hits such as Out of Sight, Jackie Brown, Get Shorty and TV's Justified, has died at the age of 87.

Leonard "passed away this morning at 7:15 a.m. at home surrounded by his loving family," according to an update posted Tuesday on his website.

The writer, based for decades in Bloomfield Township, Mich., northwest of Detroit, died of complications from a stroke suffered in early August, according to his longtime researcher, Gregg Sutter.

Though born in New Orleans, he and his family eventually settled in Detroit in the mid-1930s. After serving in the U.S. Navy in the mid 1940s, he enrolled in the University of Detroit and studied English and philosophy.

Despite a busy career as an advertising writer during the 1950s, Leonard started a career writing fiction on the side. His dedication was evident in his work ethic: he would wake in the early hours to spend time writing Westerns before heading in for a day at the Campbell-Ewald Agency.

He published dozens of short stories (such as 3:10 to Yuma), a handful of novels (including his debut, The Bounty Hunters, and the acclaimed Hombre) and sold movie rights to several projects before feeling comfortable enough to quit advertising to focus on fiction full-time in 1961. Even then he maintained a dedicated schedule of writing from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day.

'I try to leave out the parts that people tend to skip'—Elmore Leonard

During the 1970s and 1980s, Leonard began to gain a devoted and ever-larger following with a switch to crime novels, including The Big Bounce, Glitz, Get Shorty, Rum Punch, Out of Sight and The Switch.

Influenced by Ernest Hemingway, he become known and was celebrated for his crisp and spare writing style, snappy dialogue, punchy noir tales, dark humour and stories full of entertaining, morally ambiguous characters: schemers, con men, crooks and killers.

Leonard, who often said his axiom was " to leave out the parts that people tend to skip," shared his "10 Rules of Writing" with the New York Times in 2001. That list was published in book form in 2007.

Since his breakout success in the 1980s, he earned a host of honours, including the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers, the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America, the Diamond Dagger Award from the Crime Writers' Association of Great Britain and, most recently, an honorary U.S. National Book Award for lifetime achievement in 2012.

Leonard was married three times: to the late Beverly Cline in 1949, the late Joan Shepard in 1979 and, at the age of 68, to Christine Kent in 1993. He is survived by his third wife, five children from his first marriage and grandchildren.

A devoted writer until the end, Leonard had been working on his 46th book when he suffered the stroke earlier this month, according to Sutter.

Inspired by the producers of critically acclaimed cable TV series Justified, which is based on his novella Fire in the Hole, Leonard had published his 45th novel, Raylan, in 2012. Other adaptations of his stories are also set to hit the big screen, including the film Life of Crime, based on his story The Switch, which will screen at the Toronto International Film Festival in September.

"I probably won't quit until I just quit everything — quit my life — because it's all I know how to do," he told The Associated Press in 2012.

"I do have fun writing, and a long time ago, I told myself, 'You got to have fun at this, or it'll drive you nuts.'"

With files from The Associated Press

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's Toronto show mixes art, politics

Ai Weiwei's list of accolades includes the Vaclav Havel prize for creative dissent, Man of the Year nods from Time magazine and GQ, and ArtReview magazine has twice included him on its list of the top 100 most powerful artists, but when an exhibit of his work opens at Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario on Saturday he will not be in attendance.

The dissident Chinese artist is subject to a kind of house arrest in China, but that has not prevented his work from travelling abroad.

Ai's politically charged multimedia artworks have raised the ire of China's government, resulting in him being stripped of his passport after being jailed in 2011 for tax evasion — a charge his supporters claim was punishment for his activism.

The exhibit According to What? is on a North American tour, and the AGO is its only Canadian stop.

"It's pretty big for us," said AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum.

The installation piece, He Xie, is the artist's response to the demolition of his studio in Shanghai, representing a meal of crabs he served to supporters in protest of the studio's destruction. He Xie is the Chinese word for river crab, and the piece is composed of some 3,000 porcelain crabs. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

"We're interested in artists who engage the community in conversation and Ai does that," Teitelbaum told CBC News when asked if hosting an Ai Weiwei exhibit was a "good get" for the gallery.

According to What? is one of the most significant exhibitions of contemporary art the AGO has hosted in years and the lengths to which the gallery went to install it are a testament to the artist's stature.

Ai is "very important," said Scott, who invokes the names of Warhol and Picasso when describing his art and influences.

Contemporary artists like Ai "live in our time and experience the world we all experience," said Scott.

His visibility through social media (Ai's Twitter account, which was shut down temporarily, has over 200,000 followers) and his image as a champion of human rights in China has earned the artist a global following typically associated with rock stars. His popularity is in part due to his "situation," said Scott, referring to Ai's inability to leave China.

Scott said there were challenges installing Ai's more expansive pieces without the artist's presence.

The hundreds of ceramic crabs that compose the installation piece He Xie arrived at the AGO in 20 crates, and Kippe — composed of over 6,000 pieces of ancient reclaimed temple wood and iron bars — weighs hundreds of kilograms.

The AGO exhibit also includes a massive white wall lined with the names and birth dates of the 5,212 children killed in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province and a sculpture composed of over 38 tonnes of rebar collected from the disaster site. Teahouse, an installation that incorporates three miniature houses made of densely packed dried tea weighing more than one tonne each, required a structural engineer to install.

"It's the heaviest show we've ever put on," said Teitelbaum.

Along with the installations, According to What? showcases a range of the 55-year-old artist's work, including the pop-inflected remixes of Han Dynasty urns titled Coloured Vases, a bouquet of wooden Qing Dynasty stools and hundreds of photographs.

Art for politics sake?

For Ai, there is "no difference" between art and politics, said Mami Kataoka, the curator of the artist's North American tour. It's an opinion Kataoka formed through numerous meetings and conversations with the artist at his Beijing studio.

"Art gives people the strength to respond to our social-political conditions," Ai wrote in an email exchange with The Canadian Press.

"I live in one of the most extreme political societies of the world, and it sees freedom of expression as an enemy of the state," Ai said.

His artwork is best known for its political undertones exemplified in his artistic response to his country's handling of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In the same year, Ai designed the Beijing Olympics' iconic Bird's Nest stadium, only to disavow it, saying it had become a symbol of autocracy. In 2009, he underwent surgery to relieve bleeding in the brain, which allegedly occurred at the hands of police.

"More than anything, I wish Ai could see this exhibition," Scott said. "Every time we make an exhibit with a contemporary artist, it's a time to celebrate that artist."

Despite the acclaim, the fame that has followed him continues to puzzle Ai.

"I'm surprised that somebody like me would even become famous, just for demanding very basic truths and seeking ways to survive with some dignity," Ai told The Canadian Press.

According to What? runs at the AGO from Aug. 17 until Oct. 27.

With files from The Canadian Press

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Mohawk actor August Schellenberg dies at 77

Mohawk actor August Schellenberg died Thursday night in his home at Dallas after a battle with lung cancer. He was 77.

The actor's agent, Jamie Levitt, said Schellenberg died Thursday surrounded by his family.

She described Schellenberg as a loving family man and an iconic Canadian actor. He was married to Canadian actress Joan Karasevich and is the father of three daughters.

Born in Montreal to a Mohawk-English mother and Swiss-German father, Schellenberg was a champion diver and boxer in his youth. He graduated from Montreal's National Theatre School of Canada in 1966. He lived in Toronto from 1967 until 1995, and later moved to Dallas.

His extensive list of appearances in theatre, film and television include Black Robe, Free Willy and CBC's North of 60. He received three Genie award nominations, winning once for his role in Black Robe.

In 2007, he was nominated for an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Movie for his role as Chief Sitting Bull in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

Played lead in all-First Nations King Lear

In 2012, Schellenberg played the titular role in an all-First Nations version of Shakespeare's King Lear at Ottawa's National Arts Centre.

"August Schellenberg had been thinking about mounting King Lear in 1967, just two years before the NAC opened its doors in Ottawa," said Peter Herrndorf, NAC president and CEO. "Through his friendship and collaboration with our former artistic director of English theatre, Peter Hinton, that dream was realized in our theatre in 2012. It was a ground-breaking and proud production."

"Words cannot explain how much you will be missed," tweeted the NAC's communications officer Sean Fitzpatrick.

"Augie had an incredible wit, and an incredible sense of humour," said Jani Lauzon. She co-starred in Schellenberg's Lear as both the Fool and Cordelia.

"He was such an incredible role model on the screen, but [also] an incredible actor. His performance and what he brings to every role was extraordinary."

The National Arts Centre has lowered its flag today in his honour.

With files from The Associated Press

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Roy Bonisteel, former CBC Man Alive host, dies at 83

Broadcaster and former longtime CBC-TV host Roy Bonisteel has died at the age of 83.

Bonisteel's family said he died Friday morning at his home near Trenton, Ont. His family said he was being treated for cancer.

Bonisteel hosted the CBC Television program Man Alive, a magazine-style show that looked at religious issues, from 1967 to 1989. He received numerous awards over the span of his career, including two ACTRA honours.

A recipient of the Order of Canada and, more recently, a citizenship judge, Bonisteel had lived since 1971 just a short distance from his boyhood home in the Bay of Quinte area.

Bonisteel will also be remembered by some Saskatchewan journalists. He was a visiting professor at University of Regina's journalism school in the 1990s and later become the head of the program.

Nelson Bird, a producer and anchor with CTV Regina who attended the university in 1995, said Bonisteel was not a typical teacher.

"We would sit in his class every week and he would tell stories about his life, his experiences, how he did things...how he told the stories of other people and shared them with the world," said Bird.

"As prominent as he was in Canadian media, to us he was just a regular guy who liked to tell stories and laugh a lot," Bird continued.

Bonisteel is survived by his daughters, Mandy and Lesley, his son Steven, nine grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

A memorial is planned for a later date.

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Chris Brown's Canadian summer shows cancelled

Controversial American R&B singer Chris Brown won't be performing in four Canadian cities later this month after all, after the promoter of the Energy Rush festival announced he has been dropped as the main act.

Brown was scheduled to headline the Energy Rush festival in Halifax, Toronto, Saint John and Winnipeg.

"After ongoing conversation and consultation with this year's headline act Chris Brown, and in light of the performer's recent personal and health-related issues, a decision has been made to cancel all four scheduled performances," said Stephen Tobin, owner of Drop Entertainment Group, in a statement Monday.

The promoter said Energy Rush can't go ahead without a headliner so it has been postponed until next year.

In Halifax, Brown's show at Alderney Landing came under fire as soon as it was announced.

Many ardently argued the city shouldn't support Brown, who was convicted of assaulting his then girlfriend, pop star Rihanna, in 2009. The show stoked outcry on social media, with some people calling for a boycott.

Sponsors pull support

A handful of sponsors — Rogers, Molson Coors Brewing Co., esthetics company Touch of Radiance and the Halifax campus of the Centre for Arts and Technology — pulled their support once Brown was revealed to be the headline act.

Even Halifax Mayor Mike Savage voiced his disapproval.

Tobin said the cancellation has nothing to do with the controversy.

Brown's publicist Nicole Perna said the performer needs time to focus on himself and a new album.

Energy Rush organizers said this isn't the end of their plans and they hope to reschedule the show for next year. They said the event had strong ticket sales, although they didn't specify any numbers.

Refunds will be available starting on Thursday.

The controversy in Halifax came as a judge in Los Angeles revoked Brown's probation in July after reading details of an alleged hit-and-run accident in May. Brown was not ordered to go to jail.

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Kacey Musgraves winning new fans to country music

Before young people were recording their every move with smart phones, three youthful, idealistic White House aides were doing the same with Super 8 home movie cameras.

The young shutterbugs were deeply steeped in Richard Nixon's presidency -- and together they produced over 500 reels of film between 1969 and 1973. Their rarely-seen footage, which was confiscated during the Watergate investigation and later filed away and forgotten, has now resurfaced in a revealing documentary, Our Nixon.

H.R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman and Dwight Chapin capture the magnates and milestones of their generation, and a tender perspective on the president that presided over it all.

"These were men who had devoted huge portions of their adult lives to this man," said filmmaker Penny Lane, who joined guest host Stephen Quinn to talk about the film, the fate of the faithful aides, and the risks involved in humanizing an historical character many still revile today.

"It's really about trying to bring more grey area into what has really become a black and white story."

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Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's Toronto show mixes art, politics

Ai Weiwei's list of accolades includes the Vaclav Havel prize for creative dissent, Man of the Year nods from Time magazine and GQ, and ArtReview magazine has twice included him on its list of the top 100 most powerful artists, but when an exhibit of his work opens at Toronto's Art Gallery of Ontario on Saturday he will not be in attendance.

The dissident Chinese artist is subject to a kind of house arrest in China, but that has not prevented his work from travelling abroad.

Ai's politically charged multimedia artworks have raised the ire of China's government, resulting in him being stripped of his passport after being jailed in 2011 for tax evasion — a charge his supporters claim was punishment for his activism.

The exhibit According to What? is on a North American tour, and the AGO is its only Canadian stop.

"It's pretty big for us," said AGO director Matthew Teitelbaum.

The installation piece, He Xie, is the artist's response to the demolition of his studio in Shanghai, representing a meal of crabs he served to supporters in protest of the studio's destruction. He Xie is the Chinese word for river crab, and the piece is composed of some 3,000 porcelain crabs. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

"We're interested in artists who engage the community in conversation and Ai does that," Teitelbaum told CBC News when asked if hosting an Ai Weiwei exhibit was a "good get" for the gallery.

According to What? is one of the most significant exhibitions of contemporary art the AGO has hosted in years and the lengths to which the gallery went to install it are a testament to the artist's stature.

Ai is "very important," said Scott, who invokes the names of Warhol and Picasso when describing his art and influences.

Contemporary artists like Ai "live in our time and experience the world we all experience," said Scott.

His visibility through social media (Ai's Twitter account, which was shut down temporarily, has over 200,000 followers) and his image as a champion of human rights in China has earned the artist a global following typically associated with rock stars. His popularity is in part due to his "situation," said Scott, referring to Ai's inability to leave China.

Scott said there were challenges installing Ai's more expansive pieces without the artist's presence.

The hundreds of ceramic crabs that compose the installation piece He Xie arrived at the AGO in 20 crates, and Kippe — composed of over 6,000 pieces of ancient reclaimed temple wood and iron bars — weighs hundreds of kilograms.

The AGO exhibit also includes a massive white wall lined with the names and birth dates of the 5,212 children killed in the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province and a sculpture composed of over 38 tonnes of rebar collected from the disaster site. Teahouse, an installation that incorporates three miniature houses made of densely packed dried tea weighing more than one tonne each, required a structural engineer to install.

"It's the heaviest show we've ever put on," said Teitelbaum.

Along with the installations, According to What? showcases a range of the 55-year-old artist's work, including the pop-inflected remixes of Han Dynasty urns titled Coloured Vases, a bouquet of wooden Qing Dynasty stools and hundreds of photographs.

Art for politics sake?

For Ai, there is "no difference" between art and politics, said Mami Kataoka, the curator of the artist's North American tour. It's an opinion Kataoka formed through numerous meetings and conversations with the artist at his Beijing studio.

"Art gives people the strength to respond to our social-political conditions," Ai wrote in an email exchange with The Canadian Press.

"I live in one of the most extreme political societies of the world, and it sees freedom of expression as an enemy of the state," Ai said.

His artwork is best known for its political undertones exemplified in his artistic response to his country's handling of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. In the same year, Ai designed the Beijing Olympics' iconic Bird's Nest stadium, only to disavow it, saying it had become a symbol of autocracy. In 2009, he underwent surgery to relieve bleeding in the brain, which allegedly occurred at the hands of police.

"More than anything, I wish Ai could see this exhibition," Scott said. "Every time we make an exhibit with a contemporary artist, it's a time to celebrate that artist."

Despite the acclaim, the fame that has followed him continues to puzzle Ai.

"I'm surprised that somebody like me would even become famous, just for demanding very basic truths and seeking ways to survive with some dignity," Ai told The Canadian Press.

According to What? runs at the AGO from Aug. 17 until Oct. 27.

With files from The Canadian Press

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