Liberty is about the right to question everything.
AI WEIWEIThe art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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The project or a few ideas which are not finished or if there are possible directions and what will lead into another game. It’s always like setting up some kind of game you can continuously play.
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We should use this public sphere and redefine – beyond China’s borders – what a government is allowed to do, where its powers end and where the realm of a citizen’s privacy begins.
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So for too long Americans take liberty as granted. We think we are in the safe hand, the democracy and the liberty, which is not true. And it can be even getting much worse than today.
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It’s the place they take you before they give you over to the judicial system. You stay there for a year or two and they make you really suffer to confess everything.
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The importance of elections, transparency, legal procedures, an independent army, and the judicial system is not regarded as highly in China. These core values are the most important evidence of the health of a society, quality of life, and security.
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Nationality and borders are barriers to our intelligence, to our imagination and to all kinds of possibilities.
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The leadership knows that you cannot solve the issues of China’s future with the means of the past. The demographic consequences of the one-child policy, the build-up of the welfare state.
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The whole Chinese system – not just the political leadership, the military too, the whole power structure, our education system, the whole of society – is suffering from being cut off from the free flow of information.
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In this kind of dictatorship, in this kind of totalitarian society, it is easy to make deals that you cannot make in a democratic society.
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I was in the most restricted prison in China, the most tough. The design of the prison is modeled for internal crimes of the Communist party, so it’s like a mafia family’s law. It’s independent to the law this nation openly applies.
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I curated this show [Shanghai Biennale ], I was by no means trying to shock people or be controversial.
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The IT people who have made such an effort to know and understand computer technology. They are frustrated that you cannot use Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in China. They are the first to recognize that the situation is terrible.
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If I really have nothing to do, I just watch my cats, take some photos, and go back to my personal blog.
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The relationship between the Chinese government and me is like a Cold War.
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The rest of the world understands little about China’s changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
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I want people to see their own power.
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A nation like China has become one of the biggest production fields for exporting cheap labor, which also re-questions our history and past, re-questions human desire, and the human illusions of the past.
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A society is healthy only when it allows its members to discuss their thoughts openly. This is also the only way that a society can gather consensus, let everyone express his or her wish, and foster creativity.
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I think it’s a responsibility for any artist to protect freedom of expression and to use any way to extend this power.
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I think my stance and my way of life is my most important art.
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I think optimism is whether you are still exhilarated by life, whether you are curious, whether you still believe there is possibility.
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The art always wins. Anything can happen to me, but the art will stay.
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As a total activity – I practice curating, art, architecture, writing, and publishing all together. I still act as a living creature.
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I’m totally independent. I don’t bear any responsibility to any system.
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You need a purpose to express yourself, but that expression is its own purpose.
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The media is the message. It carries the full intention and the meaning. Once you change it…it’s very disturbing.
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