Due to pressure from government officials, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's name and works of art have been removed from a Shanghai exhibition on the history of contemporary Chinese art.

The exhibition titled "15 Years Chinese Contemporary Art Award" is meant to chronicle the history of the art prize which was created in 1998 by former Swiss ambassador to China Uli Sigg. Mr. Sigg hoped that the Chinese Contemporary Art Award would help to foster the art scene in China.

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The exhibition showed over 50 works by a dozen award winners but Ai, who won the award in 2008, was removed from the list of featured artists.

In recent years, a lot of controversy has surrounded the figure of Ai Weiwei who has been an outspoken critic of the Chinese government on many occasions. Most notably, the artist spent 81 days in jail in 2011 for his provocative artwork and scathing political protests.

The Shanghai Municipal Bureau of Culture officials would not say why one of China's most famous artists had been removed from the exhibit roster, but Ai stated that he believes he is being targeted because of his checkered past and his political views.  

 Organizer Uli Sigg was angered by the removal of Ai Weiwei's work from the exhibition, but there was little he could do to remedy the situation as he was informed of the change only moments before the exhibit opened. Sigg then decided to make mention of the omission in his opening remarks, but that portion of his speech was not translated for the Chinese audience present at the event.

Ai commented on the irony of his name being removed from such an important exhibition while at the same time being extensively used to promote a Western Sci-fi film in which he played a small, minor role:

"I've been very involved in Chinese contemporary art, one of the first to make a gallery, make a studio, make underground books...and here my name is erased. On the other hand you have a movie done by a Western person, that I was not so involved in, and they use my name like this. It's funny when you put these things together."