Through my work and ways of expression, I strive to engage in dialogue with the society that I am living in.
AI WEIWEII never felt like a Chinese citizen because I was pushed away at a very young age. My father, a writer, was a national enemy of the Communist Party. He was forbidden to write for 20 years.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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It’s just a way you have to set up some kind of activities to follow your instincts or your curiosities.
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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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I think the pearls – one is a necklace, and another you have five hundred pounds of pearls, which may be one million pearls in a bowl – really show a kind of [society] condition.
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I don’t think I was very structured in that society and I don’t really believe in personal success, which most Americans believe in.
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The deadly weapon against totalitarian society is openness – doing everything very openly on the Internet, letting people know every detail, any little development. Once it is out there, everybody can make their own judgement.
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I’m just bringing them to Kassel to see the art show, and pay their room and board.
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I think I’m just a traveler. When you walk across a river and there’s no bridge, you build one. I’m used to having to deal with Chinese Communist ideology.
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People have a tendency to become elite rather than to care about the general conditions of the society, which makes me sick. It’s an unbearable condition.
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If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain
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Freedom of expression is a very essential condition for me to make any art. Also, it is an essential value for my life. I have to protect this right and also to fight for the possibility.
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Of course, people will call you an old artist or young artist, which is just a character of you.
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I never think any place is better than others.
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There are many cases and layers of racist behavior in the US – from police treatment to the issues of education and job opportunities. In America, however, such cases are being discussed publically.
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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 don’t think China has professional museums – not in the past, present, or near future.
AI WEIWEI