This artwork acts as a sterile, quasi-scientific visual catalog or genealogy of modern weaponry. Ai Weiwei depicts the weapons with clinical, almost aesthetic precision, stripping them of their immediate, emotional context of use.

By organizing the weapons in a seemingly neutral, encyclopedic manner, Ai highlights the terrifying human ingenuity and escalation of destructive power over the last century. The work makes the instruments of war appear as designed objects, drawing attention to their "aesthetics" while simultaneously forcing a confrontation with their deadly purpose.

 "Bombs" is part of Ai Weiwei's ongoing body of work that addresses critical global conditions, particularly the refugee crisis. The artist explicitly connects the existence and use of these weapons to the massive displacement of people, arguing that bombs are the root cause for human migration and suffering. As he once noted, a refugee mother told him, "you know the bombs just like a rain comes down."

In essence, "Bombs" is a provocative social and political intervention that uses artistic means to bring the abstract horror of global militarization and its human cost into undeniable, physical focus.