Modern art long ago stopped being about recreating an image of reality and became about ideas. The key question always seems to be: Is art the thing itself? Or the idea of the thing?

But what if you live in a society where the very ideas you harbor are punishable by imprisonment – or worse? How much of being an artist becomes about simply having the courage to express your ideas in verbal or physical form?

That’s the notion at the heart of “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” a compelling documentary about the Chinese contemporary artist who seems to spend his life on a blade’s edge, dancing on a knife that’s in the hands of the government of the People’s Republic of China. (More…)