As the Year of the Dragon dawns, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has released “Zodiac,” a “graphic memoir” of scenes from his career — both real (hanging with Allen Ginsberg, the O.G. Each chapter frames the artist’s take on traditional beliefs about the characteristics humans share with the 12 animals of the Chinese lunar calendar. Gianluca Costantini’s intricate line drawings pair with Elettra Stamboulis’s comic-bubble text to help expand Ai’s lifelong campaign for free expression to a new medium for a new generation. Ai spoke with Jonathan Landreth about parents and parenting, punk rock and the passage of time, all via video chat last week from Berlin. A zodiac cycle ago, in 2012, you were just out of jail and tired of Beijing trying to silence you.

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Persons: Ai Weiwei, Allen Ginsberg, Xi, Gianluca, Elettra, Ai, Jonathan Landreth Organizations: Twitter Locations: Greenwich, Berlin, Beijing, ”, Berlin , Cambridge, Portugal, China, New York