Sir – The staff at Blenheim Palace have invited China’s best-known contemporary artist to visit the stately home after hosting one of his exhibitions last year.

I was privileged to review the show for Weekend, but Ai Weiwei never got to see it in person because his passport had been confiscated. He successfully designed the show in a ‘virtual’ world from his studio in Beijing. In 1993, he returned to China after 10 years in the USA and pioneered a new wave of warehouse studios. At that time he was appreciated by the government who commissioned him to design the Bird’s Nest Stadium for the Olympics.

2008 was the year when everything changed because the artist championed the parents of children who died in the Szechuan earthquake (because of poor quality school buildings). Since then he has been badly beaten up, arrested in 2011 and was held for 81 days without charge.

His passport has been returned and he will get to see his show at the Royal Academy and attend the press day. Of the key installations within the exhibition will be Straight, 2008-12, part of the body of work related to the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.

Fabricated from 90 tonnes of bent and twisted rebar (the steel rods used in the construction of reinforced concrete buildings), collected by the artist and straightened by hand, it is a sober monument to the victims of the earthquake.

I expect he will make that trip to Blenheim.

Sylvia Vetta
Kennington