Being an artist is more of a mindset, a way of seeing things; it is no longer so much about producing something.
AI WEIWEIFor those actors and directors who produce films which are always about the old kingdom or about heroes.
More Ai Weiwei Quotes
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There’s no such thing as “fixed” culture. China is also becoming more global. Its problems are becoming international problems, becoming German problems, becoming American problems.
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Self-censorship is insulting to the self. Timidity is a hopeless way forward.
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Politics is like air and water. And you know if there is bad politics. Everyone is polluted. Everyone is unhealthy. See the people walking on the street: how they act.
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My definition of art has always been the same. It is about freedom of expression, a new way of communication. It is never about exhibiting in museums or about hanging it on the wall.
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The fantasy we had with pearls was always so luxurious and unique with a kind of rareness.
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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.
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Creativity is the power to reject the past, to change the status quo, and to seek new potential. Simply put, aside from using one’s imagination – perhaps more importantly – creativity is the power to act.
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I never think any place is better than others.
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It is not an easy job to govern China, I am aware of that. There are crises and emergencies all the time, we might not even be aware of some. But I am afraid we’ll have to wait and observe precisely what the government is up to.
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Behind every political deal in this country, the first casualties are always the ordinary people, who are barely treated as human.
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Destroy or build. Crazy or noncrazy. I’m not nostalgic about the old city. I don’t enjoy it that much.
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I hope that my work expresses my worldview and encourages people to exchange ideas.
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Paintings can be painted with the left hand, the right hand, someone else’s hand, or many people’s hands. The scale of production is irrelevant to its content.
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I never had secure, belonging feelings with this society [in China].
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Creativity is the power to act.
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Of course, most luxury goods in China are for corrupted officials and their relatives. And that made China become the biggest luxury-goods market.
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Every day I’m learning something new from the practice. It’s very rewarding.
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I have to respect my life, and free expression is part of my life. I can never really silence myself.
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Even if I have hundreds of things to do, the disconnected feeling is still there because it is very hard to find a real purpose of life.
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Without freedom of speech, there is no modern world, just a barbaric one.
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Stupidity can win for a moment, but it can never really succeed because the nature of humans is to seek freedom. Rulers can delay that freedom, but they cannot stop it.
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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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I deal with students every day – from China, Germany, the United States, Hong Kong and Taiwan. And I’ve noticed that the Chinese students are the least trained in having a sense of aesthetics.
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To work in architecture you are so much involved with society, with politics, with bureaucrats. It’s a very complicated process to do large projects.
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During the days in detention, I thought most about the moon.
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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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