Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei has revealed that he has received a three-year German visa, which will allow him to become a professor at Berlin’s University of the Arts. Without warning, Chinese authorities returned Ai’s passport earlier this summer, according to Artnews’s Hannah Ghorashi. Ai’s Instagram account ran a picture of the visa, which lasts until October 2018.

The UK government had given the artist a temporary half-year visa earlier this year, as Artforum.com previously reported here. Since then, the artist has signed a book deal to write a memoir.

Meanwhile, China's ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming, recently dismissed Ai’s work, saying it was “not my taste,” and suggesting it was only famous because of Ai’s dissident stance. In response, Ai said he felt sorry for the ambassador.