Man in a cube

Man in a cube is a contemporary sculpture created by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in 2017 for the exhibition Luther and the Avant-Garde marking the quincentenary of the Reformation.

With man in a cube, Ai Weiwei is dealing with the oppressive experiences of his eighty-one day secret imprisonment by authorities in the People’s Republic of China.

The exhibition’s overarching theme was artistic treatment of Martin Luther’s ideas elaborated in his treatise On the Freedom of a Christian.

[4] The Stiftung Lutherhaus Eisenach had endeavored since 2017 to make the sculpture and “exceptional manifestation of contemporary Reformation commemoration”[5] permanently accessible to the public.

Man in a cube was permanently installed in the courtyard of the Lutherhaus in August of 2020, the quincentenary of Luther’s On the Freedom of a Christian, and presented to the public in a ceremony on October 9, 2020.