Daily Pic: The artist Ai Weiwei, breaking a 2,000-year-old Han dynasty vase, in a publicity image for his 2009 Munich show and its catalog. As most people know by now, Ai was detained a week ago by the Chinese authorites, for using activism as his art supply. Could it be that someone simply screaming out for justice is easier for the bosses to ignore than someone doing the same thing, but declaring it art? A scream is a scream is a scream - nutters are screaming all the time, everywhere - but a screaming work of art is something else again. It’s like the difference between the urinal you’ve already forgotten you used yesterday and Duchamp’s unforgettable “Fountain.” You can read more about Ai, his art and his arrest in my article in this week’s Newsweek.

The Daily Pic, along with more global art news, can also be found on the Art Beast page at thedailybeast.com.