The rest of the world understands little about China’s changes and the possibilities and crises that come with them.
AI WEIWEII spent a lot of time standing on street corners [of New York City] talking to local residents. I spent time in bookstores and galleries. But most of the time, I really did not have much to do.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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As long as I can communicate, I’m not so lonely. If I cannot travel, or do art, or have company, if they take away all my belongings, it doesn’t matter at all.
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I think art certainly is the vehicle for us to develop any new ideas, to be creative, to extend our imagination, to change the current conditions.
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[Museums] all belongs to the cultural department, which is the biggest cultural department in the world.
AI WEIWEI -
Man has a tendency to try to give clear reasons to be rational, but often you can see how all those reasons are not convincing and turn out to be a big nonsense.
AI WEIWEI -
I call on people to be ‘obsessed citizens,’ forever questioning and asking for accountability. That’s the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.
AI WEIWEI -
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.
AI WEIWEI -
People have been longing for this moment, because it symbolises a turning point in China’s relationship with the outside world.
AI WEIWEI -
This so-called fame or being better off doesn’t really attract me at all.
AI WEIWEI -
Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.
AI WEIWEI -
New York has given me a lot, but I still don’t consider it home.
AI WEIWEI -
I think everybody deserves freedom. Freedom is such an abstract word, but it’s all we need.
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Everything is art. Everything is politics.
AI WEIWEI -
I also have to speak out for people around me who are afraid, who think it is not worth it or who have totally given up hope. So I want to set an example: you can do it and this is OK, to speak out.
AI WEIWEI -
No state or society can claim to have established human rights once and for all.
AI WEIWEI -
We are not on – even just a step away from the most brutal and primitive crudity. To be very crude on those issues, which is always challenges and we always have to look at the situation like a mirror, to draw some understanding.
AI WEIWEI