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At first it seems confusing, German pavilion, Chinese artist, French pavilion. The German contribution at the 55th Biennale in Venice is an installation by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in the French pavilion. Ai Weiwei has assembled 886 three-legged wooden stools. The stool was manufactured by a uniform method and was in use throughout China for centuries. Every family had at least one stool and was passed on from generation to generation. After the Cultural Revolution, aluminium and plastic have superseded wood as the standard material for furniture. The tree-legged wooden stool is slowly but surely disappearing.