Sihl's wallpaper used for artist Ai Weiwei's Zurich exhibition

When Zurich’s Fotomuseum Winterthur was tasked with the job of hosting the first major photographic and video exhibition of contemporary of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei’s work, it had to ensure the impact of the images weren’t lost by poor reproduction, as the works would be displayed across the museum’s entire wall space.

The museum commissioned the Zurich print service provider, The Image Factory, to print the exhibits, who in turn made the decision to use Sihl Direct UK’s Wallpaper Persomural in combination with the Epson’s Stylus Pro 9900 and 11880 printers.

Ai Weiwei is an architect, conceptual artist, sculptor, photographer, blogger, twitterer, interview artist and political activist who concerns himself with current themes and social problems. He deliberately questions social relationships in China by means of photographic documentation.  This first major exhibition and book project dedicated to his photographic and video work, sheds light on the diversity, complexity and interlaced character of Ai Weiwei‘s work, with hundreds of photographs, blogs and explanatory essays. Ai’s work is extremely impactful to the viewer but needs to be printed on the right material.

Ian Turnbull, operations director of Sihl Direct UK, said, “They chose our wallpaper for several reasons. It has an attractive structure, the good dimensional stability of the fleece material â€" in both a dry and wet state and easy bonding and handling. Of course one of the main reasons they chose the Sihl Wallpaper was because it offers the best printing results, which is most important when printing images on such a huge scale.”

He adds, “Also, because this display was the first in a series of Ai Weiwei exhibitions, the fleece basis of Persomural170 matt 3260 made it possible to reuse the prints. By using the adhesive supplement Tylose (methyl cellulose), the paper can be moistened and removed after the exhibition. It can be moistened again, pasted and then remounted in other locations. Even after repeated use, the dimension of the material remains unchanged and the printed image is as brilliant as ever.”

This huge benefit was demonstrated earlier this year when the exhibition successfully moved to the Kunsthaus Graz Museum in Austria. Ai Weiwei’s work is currently on display at the Jeu de Paume in Paris until 29th April 2012.